| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: utmost difficulty in stirring up her little heart, since she has been
the only child, by talking to her of you; but, as you will easily
understand, as soon as she is married you will carry her off to Paris.
There, festivities, married life, the theatres, and the rush of
Parisian society, will soon make her forget confessionals, and
fasting, and hair shirts, and Masses, which are the exclusive
nourishment of such creatures."
"But the fifty thousand francs a year derived from Church property?
Will not all that return--"
"That is the point!" exclaimed the Count, with a cunning glance. "In
consideration of this marriage--for Madame Bontems' vanity is not a
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: strangers; they may skin me alive, if they please (and I am pretty well
skinned by them already), if only my skin is made at last, not like that of
Marsyas, into a leathern bottle, but into a piece of virtue. And here is
Dionysodorus fancying that I am angry with him, when really I am not angry
at all; I do but contradict him when I think that he is speaking improperly
to me: and you must not confound abuse and contradiction, O illustrious
Dionysodorus; for they are quite different things.
Contradiction! said Dionysodorus; why, there never was such a thing.
Certainly there is, he replied; there can be no question of that. Do you,
Dionysodorus, maintain that there is not?
You will never prove to me, he said, that you have heard any one
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: Such a sentence would have not the slightest effect,
As the pig had been dead for some years.
The Judge left the Court, looking deeply disgusted:
But the Snark, though a little aghast,
As the lawyer to whom the defense was entrusted,
Went bellowing on to the last.
Thus the Barrister dreamed, while the bellowing seemed
To grow every moment more clear:
Till he woke to the knell of a furious bell,
Which the Bellman rang close at his ear.
Fit the Seventh
The Hunting of the Snark |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: determined him to repose on her fidelity, and secure her secrecy by
a declaration without reserve.
"Do not imagine," said the Princess, "that I came hither as a spy.
I had long observed from my window that you and Imlac directed your
walk every day towards the same point, but I did not suppose you
had any better reason for the preference than a cooler shade or
more fragrant bank, nor followed you with any other design than to
partake of your conversation. Since, then, not suspicion, but
fondness, has detected you, let me not lose the advantage of my
discovery. I am equally weary of confinement with yourself, and
not less desirous of knowing what is done or suffered in the world.
|
