| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Othello by William Shakespeare: I would keepe from thee. For your sake (Iewell)
I am glad at soule, I haue no other Child,
For thy escape would teach me Tirranie
To hang clogges on them. I haue done my Lord
Duke. Let me speake like your selfe:
And lay a Sentence,
Which as a grise, or step may helpe these Louers.
When remedies are past, the griefes are ended
By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended.
To mourne a Mischeefe that is past and gon,
Is the next way to draw new mischiefe on.
Othello |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: finished, Alyosha smiled.
"All right. I'll drop it."
"Now that's what I call sense."
When he was left alone with Ustinia he told her
what his father had said. (She had listened at
the door.)
"It's no good; it can't come off. Did you hear?
He was angry--won't have it at any price."
Ustinia cried into her apron.
Alyosha shook his head.
"What's to be done? We must do as we're
The Forged Coupon |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: opinion of the Consistory on the proper way of observing Lent, the
Ember days, and the eve of great festivals.
His misfortune was too great! He could not even complain, for what
could he say? He had a pretty young wife attached to her duties,
virtuous--nay, a model of all the virtues. She had a child every year,
nursed them herself, and brought them up in the highest principles.
Being charitable, Angelique was promoted to rank as an angel. The old
women who constituted the circle in which she moved--for at that time
it was not yet "the thing" for young women to be religious as a matter
of fashion--all admired Madame de Granville's piety, and regarded her,
not indeed as a virgin, but as a martyr. They blamed not the wife's
|
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 Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: cannot stir! and crying, Woe is me, I have not time to read! As
though a book were not as much an outward thing and independent
of the will, as office and power and the receptions of the great.
Or what reason hast thou (tell me) for desiring to read? For
if thou aim at nothing beyond the mere delight of it, or gaining
some scrap of knowledge, thou art but a poor, spiritless knave.
But if thou desirest to study to its proper end, what else is
this than a life that flows on tranquil and serene? And if thy
reading secures thee not serenity, what profits it?--"Nay, but it
doth secure it," quoth he, "and that is why I repine at being
deprived of it."--And what serenity is this that lies at the
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
