| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber: woman, that all men loved and loathed? Well, Olga's like
that. I'm not whining. I'm not exaggerating. I'm just
trying to make you understand. And yet I don't want you to
understand. Only you don't know what it means to have you
to talk to. To have some one who"--he clutched her hand,
fearfully--"You do love me, don't you, Fanny? You do, don't
you, Sis?"
"More than any one in the world," Fanny reassured him,
quietly. "The way mother would have, if she had lived."
A sigh escaped him, at that, as though a load had lifted
from him. He went on, presently. "It would have been all
Fanny Herself |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: fall that a Spanish ship was at anchor in the Roads, laden with
merchandise. My father pricked up his ears at this, and asked who
her captain might be. Squire Bozard answered that he did not know
his name, but that he had seen him in the market-place, a tall and
stately man, richly dressed, with a handsome face and a scar upon
his temple.
At this news my mother turned pale beneath her olive skin, and
muttered in Spanish:
'Holy Mother! grant that it be not he.'
My father also looked frightened, and questioned the squire closely
as to the man's appearance, but without learning anything more.
Montezuma's Daughter |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: they were asking evil. He neither sought, nor supposed that he sought for
good, but others have had quite the contrary notion. I believe that if the
God whom you are about to consult should appear to you, and, in
anticipation of your request, enquired whether you would be contented to
become tyrant of Athens, and if this seemed in your eyes a small and mean
thing, should add to it the dominion of all Hellas; and seeing that even
then you would not be satisfied unless you were ruler of the whole of
Europe, should promise, not only that, but, if you so desired, should
proclaim to all mankind in one and the same day that Alcibiades, son of
Cleinias, was tyrant:--in such a case, I imagine, you would depart full of
joy, as one who had obtained the greatest of goods.
|
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 Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: Before they got their use: and therefore, they
Could not be gendered for the sake of use.
But contrariwise, contending in the fight
With hand to hand, and rending of the joints,
And fouling of the limbs with gore, was there,
O long before the gleaming spears ere flew;
And nature prompted man to shun a wound,
Before the left arm by the aid of art
Opposed the shielding targe. And, verily,
Yielding the weary body to repose,
Far ancienter than cushions of soft beds,
Of The Nature of Things |
