| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: Anne of Austria re-entered her apartment, and came out again
almost immediately, holding a rosewood casket in her hand, with
her cipher encrusted with gold.
"Her, my Lord, here," said she, "keep this in memory of me."
Buckingham took the casket, and fell a second time on his knees.
"You have promised me to go," said the queen.
"And I keep my word. Your hand, madame, your hand, and I
depart!"
Anne of Austria stretched forth her hand, closing her eyes, and
leaning with the other upon Estafania, for she felt that her
strength was about to fail her.
The Three Musketeers |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: of a chained dog, and are proud of it. But the end of it is that they
are always in chains, even at the height of their military or
political success: they win everything on condition that they are
afraid to enjoy it. Their civilizations rest on intimidation, which
is so necessary to them that when they cannot find anybody brave
enough to intimidate them they intimidate themselves and live in a
continual moral and political panic. In the end they get found out
and bullied. But that is not the point that concerns us here, which
is, that they are in some respects better brought up than the children
of sentimental people who are always anxious and miserable about their
duty to their children, and who end by neither making their children
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