| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine and Mucedorus by William Shakespeare: What one would wish, the same is farthest off:
But yet th' appointed time cannot be past,
Nor hath her presence yet prevented me.
Well, here I'll stay, and expect her coming.
[They cry within, 'hold him, stay him, hold.']
Some one or other is pursued, no doubt;
Perhaps some search for me: tis good
To doubt the worst, therefore I'll begone.
[Exit.]
ACT III. SCENE V. The same.
[Cry within 'hold him, hold him.' Enter Mouse
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: it not pleasant as well as odd? But does it not sound unfinished?
I will not take it upon myself to assert that names have no influence
on the destiny of men. There is a certain secret and inexplicable
concord or a visible discord between the events of a man's life and
his name which is truly surprising; often some remote but very real
correlation is revealed. Our globe is round; everything is linked to
everything else. Some day perhaps we shall revert to the occult
sciences.
Do you not discern in that letter Z an adverse influence? Does it not
prefigure the wayward and fantastic progress of a storm-tossed life?
What wind blew on that letter, which, whatever language we find it in,
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