| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: Tranquillity, and passionless Serenity.
CV
He that hath no musical instruction is a child in Music; he
that hath no letters is a child in Learning; he that is untaught
is a child in Life.
CVI
Can any profit be derived from these men? Aye, from all.
"What, even from a reviler?"
"Why, tell me what profit a wrestler gains from him you
exercises him beforehand? The very greatest: he trains me in the
practice of endurance, of controlling my temper, of gentle ways.
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
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 A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: November 1808 the Canon of Bayeux Cathedral who had been the keeper of
Madame Bontems' conscience and her daughter's, came to Paris, spurred
by the ambition to be at the head of a church in the capital--a
position which he regarded perhaps as the stepping-stone to a
bishopric. On resuming his former control of this wandering lamb, he
was horrified to find her already so much deteriorated by the air of
Paris, and strove to reclaim her to his chilly fold. Frightened by the
exhortations of this priest, a man of about eight-and-thirty, who
brought with him, into the circle of the enlightened and tolerant
Paris clergy, the bitter provincial catholicism and the inflexible
bigotry which fetter timid souls with endless exactions, Madame de
|
