| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey: belonged to him, and he loved her. Still these were not all the
reasons why he did not want to take her away. Where could they
go? He feared the rustlers--he feared the riders--he feared the
Mormons. And if he should ever succeed in getting Bess safely
away from these immediate perils, he feared the sharp eyes of
women and their tongues, the big outside world with its problems
of existence. He must wait to decide her future, which, after
all, was deciding his own. But between her future and his
something hung impending. Like Balancing Rock, which waited
darkly over the steep gorge, ready to close forever the outlet to
Deception Pass, that nameless thing, as certain yet intangible as
Riders of the Purple Sage |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: do that which they know or suppose that they know, neither to know nor to
suppose that they know, in cases where if they carry out their ideas in
action they will be losers rather than gainers?
ALCIBIADES: What you say is very true.
SOCRATES: Do you not see that I was really speaking the truth when I
affirmed that the possession of any other kind of knowledge was more likely
to injure than to benefit the possessor, unless he had also the knowledge
of the best?
ALCIBIADES: I do now, if I did not before, Socrates.
SOCRATES: The state or the soul, therefore, which wishes to have a right
existence must hold firmly to this knowledge, just as the sick man clings
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: infirmities, he is filled with confidence because a year has
come and gone, and he has still preserved some rags of honour.
In the first, he expects an angel for a wife; in the last, he
knows that she is like himself - erring, thoughtless, and
untrue; but like himself also, filled with a struggling
radiancy of better things, and adorned with ineffective
qualities. You may safely go to school with hope; but ere you
marry, should have learned the mingled lesson of the world:
that dolls are stuffed with sawdust, and yet are excellent
play-things; that hope and love address themselves to a
perfection never realised, and yet, firmly held, become the
|
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 The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: had answered their leader, greeted these words. The young man's face
grew darker; he took the young lady aside and said in the annoyed tone
of a well-bred man, "Will those gentlemen be at La Vivetiere on the
appointed day?"
"Yes," she replied, "all of them, the Claimant, Grand-Jacques, and
perhaps Ferdinand."
"Then allow me to return there. I cannot sanction such robbery. Yes,
madame, I call it robbery. There may be honor in being robbed, but--"
"Well, well," she said, interrupting him, "then I shall have your
share of the booty, and I am much obliged to you for giving it up to
me; the extra sum will be extremely useful, for my mother has delayed
The Chouans |
