| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: Each new-born year the bulbuls sing
Their songs of your renascent loves;
Your beauty wakens with the spring
To kindle these pomegranate groves.
TO A BUDDHA SEATED ON A LOTUS
Lord Buddha, on thy Lotus-throne,
With praying eyes and hands elate,
What mystic rapture dost thou own,
Immutable and ultimate?
What peace, unravished of our ken,
Annihilate from the world of men?
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: "The other day we were hunting, De Marsay and I, He would not believe
me, but I jumped a hedge without moving on my horse!"
Or again:
"We were with some women, De Marsay and I, and upon my word of honor,
I was----" etc.
Thus Paul de Manerville could not be classed amongst the great,
illustrious, and powerful family of fools who succeed. He would one
day be a deputy. For the time he was not even a young man. His friend,
De Marsay, defined him thus: "You ask me what is Paul? Paul? Why, Paul
de Manerville!"
"I am surprised, my dear fellow," he said to De Marsay, "to see you
 The Girl with the Golden Eyes |