| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: "God forbid you should sacrifice the present for the future!
There is youth, health, fire in the present; the future is smoke
and deception! As soon as you are twenty begin to live."
Tatyana Ivanovna dropped a knitting-needle. My uncle jumped up,
picked up the needle, and handed it to Tatyana Ivanovna with a
bow, and for the first time in my life I learnt that there were
people in the world more refined than Pobyedimsky.
"Yes . . ." my uncle went on, "love, marry, do silly things.
Foolishness is a great deal more living and healthy than our
straining and striving after rational life."
My uncle talked a great deal, so much that he bored us; I sat on
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: And wherefore men must watch, when now the day
Grows shorter, and more soft the summer's heat?
When Spring the rain-bringer comes rushing down,
Or when the beards of harvest on the plain
Bristle already, and the milky corn
On its green stalk is swelling? Many a time,
When now the farmer to his yellow fields
The reaping-hind came bringing, even in act
To lop the brittle barley stems, have I
Seen all the windy legions clash in war
Together, as to rend up far and wide
Georgics |
