| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Confessio Amantis by John Gower: And for he scholde slepe softe,
Upon a fethrebed alofte 3020
He lith with many a pilwe of doun:
The chambre is strowed up and doun
With swevenes many thousendfold.
Thus cam Yris into this hold,
And to the bedd, which is al blak,
Sche goth, and ther with Slep sche spak,
And in the wise as sche was bede
The Message of Juno sche dede.
Fulofte hir wordes sche reherceth,
Confessio Amantis |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: development, and how I passed from my initial liberal-socialism to
the conception of a constructive aristocracy. I have tried to set
that out in the form of a man discovering himself. Incidentally
that self-development led to a profound breach with my wife. One
has read stories before of husband and wife speaking severally two
different languages and coming to an understanding. But Margaret
and I began in her dialect, and, as I came more and more to use my
own, diverged.
I had thought when I married that the matter of womankind had ended
for me. I have tried to tell all that sex and women had been to me
up to my married life with Margaret and our fatal entanglement,
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