| 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: pursuits of the king; she made for her the scandalous chronicle of the
lords and ladies of the court, whom the abbess knew perfectly by name,
touched lightly on the amours of the queen and the Duke of Buckingham,
talking a great deal to induce her auditor to talk a little.
But the abbess contented herself with listening and smiling without
replying a word. Milady, however, saw that this sort of narrative
amused her very much, and kept at it; only she now let her conversation
drift toward the cardinal.
But she was greatly embarrassed. She did not know whether the abbess
was a royalist or a cardinalist; she therefore confined herself to a
prudent middle course. But the abbess, on her part, maintained a
The Three Musketeers |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: were.
IV
The Yellowstone
ONCE upon a time there was a carter who brought his team and a
friend into the Yellowstone Park without due thought. Presently
they came upon a few of the natural beauties of the place, and
that carter turned his team into his friend's team,
howling:--"Get out o' this, Jim. All hell's alight under our
noses!"
And they called the place Hell's Half-Acre to this day to witness
if the carter lied.
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: but gratitude towards her, he owed her his happiness, and yet,
it was embarrassing to him to meet her.
It is an error to think that passion, when it is pure and happy,
leads man to a state of perfection; it simply leads him, as we
have noted, to a state of oblivion. In this situation, man forgets
to be bad, but he also forgets to be good. Gratitude, duty,
matters essential and important to be remembered, vanish. At any
other time, Marius would have behaved quite differently to Eponine.
Absorbed in Cosette, he had not even clearly put it to himself
that this Eponine was named Eponine Thenardier, and that she bore
the name inscribed in his father's will, that name, for which,
Les Miserables |
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 Apology by Xenophon: Socrates should actually receive from heaven more than they
themselves; whereupon Socrates returned to the charge. "Come," he
said, "lend me your ears while I tell you something more, so that
those of you who choose may go to a still greater length in refusing
to believe that I am thus highly honoured by the divine powers.
Chaerephon[25] once, in the presence of many witnesses, put a question
at Delhi concerning me, and Apollo answered that there was no human
being more liberal, or more upright, or more temperate than myself."
And when once more on hearing these words the judges gave vent, as was
only natural, to a fiercer murmur of dissent, Socrates once again
spoke: "Yet, sirs, they were still greater words which the god spake
The Apology |
