| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: the things of sense. The workmanship of such an Artist, wilt thou
dishonor Him? Ay, when he not only fashioned thee, but placed
thee, like a ward, in the care and guardianship of thyself alone,
wilt thou not only forget this, but also do dishonour to what is
committed to thy care! If God had entrusted thee with an orphan,
wouldst thou have thus neglected him? He hath delivered thee to
thine own care, saying, I had none more faithful than myself:
keep this man for me such as Nature hath made him--modest,
faithful, high-minded, a stranger to fear, to passion, to
perturbation. . . .
Such will I show myself to you all.--"What, exempt from
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Two Noble Kinsmen by William Shakespeare: of silver on the tip of your tongue, or no ferry: then, if it be
your chance to come where the blessed spirits, as ther's a sight
now--we maids that have our Lyvers perish'd, crakt to peeces with
Love, we shall come there, and doe nothing all day long but picke
flowers with Proserpine; then will I make Palamon a Nosegay; then
let him marke me,--then--
DOCTOR.
How prettily she's amisse? note her a little further.
DAUGHTER.
Faith, ile tell you, sometime we goe to Barly breake, we of the
blessed; alas, tis a sore life they have i'th other place, such
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: law. Exceptions to this rule are rare. Virtue, socially speaking, is
the companion of a comfortable life, and comes only with education.
Thus the Rabouilleuse was an object of envy to all the young peasant-
girls within a circuit of ten miles, although her conduct, from a
religious point of view, was supremely reprehensible. Flore, born in
1787, grew up in the midst of the saturnalias of 1793 and 1798, whose
lurid gleams penetrated these country regions, then deprived of
priests and faith and altars and religious ceremonies; where marriage
was nothing more than legal coupling, and revolutionary maxims left a
deep impression. This was markedly the case at Issoudun, a land where,
as we have seen, revolt of all kinds is traditional. In 1802, Catholic
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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 Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: answer amicably: "If I could possibly help you out, Violet, I
shouldn't want a present to persuade me. And, as you say,
there's no reason why I should sacrifice myself to Ursula--or to
anybody else. Only, as it happens"--she paused and took the
plunge--"I'm going to England because I've promised to see a
friend." That night she wrote to Strefford.
XVI
STRETCHED out under an awning on the deck of the Ibis, Nick
Lansing looked up for a moment at the vanishing cliffs of Malta
and then plunged again into his book.
He had had nearly three weeks of drug-taking on the Ibis. The
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