| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: were of rare beauty; Miss Lewiston, maid of honor to Mary Stuart; Mary
Stuart herself; Madame Elizabeth of France (who was afterwards that
unfortunate Queen of Spain); and Madame Claude. Elizabeth and Claude
were eight and nine years old, Mary Stuart twelve; evidently the queen
intended to bring forward Miss Fleming and Clarice Strozzi and present
them without rivals to the king. The king fell in love with Miss
Fleming, by whom he had a natural son, Henri de Valois, Comte
d'Angouleme, grand-prior of France. But the power and influence of
Diane were not shaken. Like Madame de Pompadour with Louis XV., the
Duchesse de Valentinois forgave all. But what sort of love did this
attempt show in Catherine? Was it love to her husband or love of
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: relation to itself: one will be equal to itself as well as to the others
(talla). Yet one, being in itself, must also be about itself, containing
and contained, and is therefore greater and less than itself. Further,
there is nothing beside the one and the others; and as these must be in
something, they must therefore be in one another; and as that in which a
thing is is greater than the thing, the inference is that they are both
greater and less than one another, because containing and contained in one
another. Therefore the one is equal to and greater and less than itself or
other, having also measures or parts or numbers equal to or greater or less
than itself or other.
But does one partake of time? This must be acknowledged, if the one
|