| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: Tamys Rivere twys, etc. The River Thames, frozen twice in one
year, so as men to walk on it, is a very signal accident, which
perhaps hath not fallen out for several hundred years before, and
is the reason why some astrologers have thought that this
prophecy could never be fulfilled, because they imagine such a
thing would never happen in our climate.
From Town of Stoffe, etc. This is a plain designation of the Duke
of Marlborough: One kind of stuff used to fatten land is called
marle, and every body knows that borough is a name for a town;
and this way of expression is after the usual dark manner of old
astrological predictions.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Reef by Edith Wharton: aware that he meant to speak. "Yes; I did see her in
Paris," he went on after a pause; "but I was bound to
respect her reason for not wanting it known."
Anna paled. "It was she at the theatre that night?"
"I was with her at the theatre one night."
"Why should she have asked you not to say so?"
"She didn't wish it known that I'd met her."
"Why shouldn't she have wished it known?"
"She had quarrelled with Mrs. Murrett and come over suddenly
to Paris, and she didn't want the Farlows to hear of it. I
came across her by accident, and she asked me not to speak
|
