| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: becoming cosmetic. When Felipe and I drive along the Champs-Elysees in
the bright sunshine of a crisp January day, beneath the trees, frosted
with clusters of white stars, and face all Paris on the spot where
last year we met with a gulf between us, the contrast calls up a
thousand fancies. Suppose, after all, your last letter should be right
in its forecast, and we are too presumptuous!
If I am ignorant of a mother's joys, you shall tell me about them; I
will learn by sympathy. But my imagination can picture nothing to
equal the rapture of love. You will laugh at my extravagance; but, I
assure you, that a dozen times in as many months the longing has
seized me to die at thirty, while life was still untarnished, amidst
|
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 Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: than for that fairer sex whose innocent and virgin spirits stand
less in want of creature consolations.
"But come, let us not trouble our enjoyment with careful
discrimination of others' scruples. Your tobacco is rarely good;
I'll warrant it comes from that province of Virginia which was named
for the Virgin Queen; and while we smoke together, let me call you,
for this hour, my Scholar; and so I will give you four choice rules
for the attainment of that unhastened quietude of mind whereof we
did lately discourse.
"First: you shall learn to desire nothing in the world so much but
that you can be happy without it.
|
