| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: visit me with all the penalties which it metes out to those who
perjure themselves."
He cut the boar's throat as he spoke, whereon Talthybius whirled
it round his head, and flung it into the wide sea to feed the
fishes. Then Achilles also rose and said to the Argives, "Father
Jove, of a truth you blind men's eyes and bane them. The son of
Atreus had not else stirred me to so fierce an anger, nor so
stubbornly taken Briseis from me against my will. Surely Jove
must have counselled the destruction of many an Argive. Go, now,
and take your food that we may begin fighting."
On this he broke up the assembly, and every man went back to his
The Iliad |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: put his arm round her, clasped her to his heart, and snatched a kiss.
But she freed herself by a dignified movement of offended modesty,
and, standing a yard off, she looked at him without anger, but with
firm determination.
"Go this evening," she said. "We meet no more till we meet at Naples."
This order was stern, but it was obeyed, for it was Francesca's will.
On his return to Paris Rodolphe found in his rooms a portrait of
Princess Gandolphini painted by Schinner, as Schinner can paint. The
artist had passed through Geneva on his way to Italy. As he had
positively refused to paint the portraits of several women, Rodolphe
did not believe that the Prince, anxious as he was for a portrait of
Albert Savarus |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: comfortable for the night.
The two young fellows saw all the sights, and after filling their
pockets with peanuts and themselves with pink lemonade, took their
seats at last under the canvas roof, where they waited impatiently
for the performance to begin.
The only departure from the ordinary routine was Cully's instant
acceptance of the clown's challenge to ride the trick mule, and
his winning the wager amid the plaudits of the audience, after a
rough-and-tumble scramble in the sawdust, sticking so tight to his
back that a bystander remarked that the only way to get the boy
off would be to "peel the mule."
|
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 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: with me to the table. What use to make of the tobacco I knew not,
in my distemper, or whether it was good for it or no: but I tried
several experiments with it, as if I was resolved it should hit one
way or other. I first took a piece of leaf, and chewed it in my
mouth, which, indeed, at first almost stupefied my brain, the
tobacco being green and strong, and that I had not been much used
to. Then I took some and steeped it an hour or two in some rum,
and resolved to take a dose of it when I lay down; and lastly., I
burnt some upon a pan of coals, and held my nose close over the
smoke of it as long as I could bear it, as well for the heat as
almost for suffocation. In the interval of this operation I took
Robinson Crusoe |
