| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare: into his native quarter, be magnanimous in the enterprise, and go
on; I will grace the attempt for a worthy exploit; if you speed
well in it, the duke shall both speak of it and extend to you
what further becomes his greatness, even to the utmost syllable
of your worthiness.
PAROLLES.
By the hand of a soldier, I will undertake it.
BERTRAM.
But you must not now slumber in it.
PAROLLES.
I'll about it this evening: and I will presently pen down my
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: and justify all thy errors? Then came the days of thy later passions,
terrible like the love of a woman of forty years, with a fierce cry
thou hast sought to clasp the whole universe in one last embrace--and
thy universe recoiled from thee!
"Then old men succeeded to thy young lovers; decrepitude came to thy
feet and made thee hideous. Yet, even then, men with the eagle power
of vision said to thee in a glance, 'Thou shalt perish ingloriously,
because thou hast fallen away, because thou hast broken the vows of
thy maidenhood. The angel with peace written on her forehead, who
should have shed light and joy along her path, has been a Messalina,
delighting in the circus, in debauchery, and abuse of power. The days
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: character of his companion, or whether, because she found abundant
food in her predatory excursions in the desert, she respected the
man's life, he began to fear for it no longer, seeing her so well
tamed.
He devoted the greater part of his time to sleep, but he was obliged
to watch like a spider in its web that the moment of his deliverance
might not escape him, if anyone should pass the line marked by the
horizon. He had sacrificed his shirt to make a flag with, which he
hung at the top of a palm tree, whose foliage he had torn off. Taught
by necessity, he found the means of keeping it spread out, by
fastening it with little sticks; for the wind might not be blowing at
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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 Phaedrus by Plato: clear and bright; I can fancy that there might be maidens playing near.
SOCRATES: I believe that the spot is not exactly here, but about a quarter
of a mile lower down, where you cross to the temple of Artemis, and there
is, I think, some sort of an altar of Boreas at the place.
PHAEDRUS: I have never noticed it; but I beseech you to tell me, Socrates,
do you believe this tale?
SOCRATES: The wise are doubtful, and I should not be singular if, like
them, I too doubted. I might have a rational explanation that Orithyia was
playing with Pharmacia, when a northern gust carried her over the
neighbouring rocks; and this being the manner of her death, she was said to
have been carried away by Boreas. There is a discrepancy, however, about
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