| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: swear to me, by your salvation, to carry out my instructions
faithfully?"
Felipe looked at his father, and Don Juan was too deeply learned
in the lore of the human countenance not to die in peace with
that look as his warrant, as his own father had died in despair
at meeting the expression in his son's eyes.
"You deserved to have a better father," Don Juan went on. "I dare
to confess, my child, that while the reverend Abbot of San-Lucar
was administering the Viaticum I was thinking of the
incompatibility of the co-existence of two powers so infinite as
God and the Devil----"
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: Subtilly hath ministred to haue me dead,
Least in this marriage he should be dishonour'd,
Because he married me before to Romeo?
I feare it is, and yet me thinkes it should not,
For he hath still beene tried a holy man.
How, if when I am laid into the Tombe,
I wake before the time that Romeo
Come to redeeme me? There's a fearefull point:
Shall I not then be stifled in the Vault?
To whose foule mouth no healthsome ayre breaths in,
And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes.
Romeo and Juliet |
