| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: application to harmony and rhythm. Again, in the essential nature of
harmony and rhythm there is no difficulty in discerning love which has not
yet become double. But when you want to use them in actual life, either in
the composition of songs or in the correct performance of airs or metres
composed already, which latter is called education, then the difficulty
begins, and the good artist is needed. Then the old tale has to be
repeated of fair and heavenly love--the love of Urania the fair and
heavenly muse, and of the duty of accepting the temperate, and those who
are as yet intemperate only that they may become temperate, and of
preserving their love; and again, of the vulgar Polyhymnia, who must be
used with circumspection that the pleasure be enjoyed, but may not generate
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: career of other beauties, pointing out to her daughter what might
be achieved through such a gift, and dwelling on the awful
warning of those who, in spite of it, had failed to get what they
wanted: to Mrs. Bart, only stupidity could explain the lamentable
denouement of some of her examples. She was not above the
inconsistency of charging fate, rather than herself, with her own
misfortunes; but she inveighed so acrimoniously against
love-matches that Lily would have fancied her own marriage had
been of that nature, had not Mrs. Bart frequently assured her
that she had been "talked into it"--by whom, she never made
clear.
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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 The Riverman by Stewart Edward White: little ball. The twilight darkened.
"Blind-man's holiday!" warned Carroll behind them so suddenly that
they both jumped. "And the sand man's been at somebody, I know!"
She bore him away to bed. Orde sat smoking in the darkness, staring
straight ahead of him into the future. He believed he had found the
opportunity--twenty years distant--for which he had been looking so
long.
XXX
After a time Carroll descended the stairs, chuckling. "Jack," she
called into the sitting-room, "come out on the porch. What do you
suppose the young man did to-night?"
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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 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: I am a cuckold, and she is a whore.' He spoke it in a kind of
jest, but it was with such an awkward smile, that I perceived
it was what struck very close to him, and he looked dismally
when he said it.
'That alters the case indeed, sir,' said I, 'as to that part you
were speaking of; but a cuckold, you know, may be an honest
man; it does not alter that case at all. Besides, I think,' said
I, 'since your wife is so dishonest to you, you are too honest
to her to own her for your wife; but that,' said I, 'is what I
have nothing to do with.'
'Nay,' says he, 'I do not think to clear my hands of her; for,
Moll Flanders |
