| 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: the first page, the leading article, the extracts from the
newspapers and journals, the chronicle of events. . . . In the
latter I find, among other things, the following paragraph: "Our
distinguished savant, Professor Nikolay Stepanovitch So-and-so,
arrived yesterday in Harkov, and is staying in the So-and-so
Hotel."
Apparently, illustrious names are created to live on their own
account, apart from those that bear them. Now my name is
promenading tranquilly about Harkov; in another three months,
printed in gold letters on my monument, it will shine bright as
the sun itself, while I s hall be already under the moss.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: business. If you can get the fools to admit one thing, they will
always save their face by denying another. If you can induce them
to take a step to the right hand, they generally indemnify
themselves by cutting a caper to the left. I always held (upon no
evidence whatever, from a mere sentiment or intuition) that
politics was the dirtiest, the most foolish, and the most random of
human employments. I always held, but now I know it! Fortunately,
you have nothing to do with anything of the kind, and I may spare
you the horror of further details.
I received from you a book by a man by the name of Anatole France.
Why should I disguise it? I have no use for Anatole. He writes
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: And sends the poor well pleased from my gate.
CADE.
Here's the lord of the soil come to seize me for a
stray, for entering his fee-simple without leave.--Ah, villain,
thou wilt betray me, and get a thousand crowns of the king
by carrying my head to him; but I'll make thee eat iron like
an ostrich, and swallow my sword like a great pin, ere thou
and I part.
IDEN.
Why, rude companion, whatsoe'er thou be, I know
thee not! why, then, should I betray thee?
|
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 Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: MINUTIAE at table, you know, but a naked hand can no more go
through a pane of thick glass without leaving some of its cuticle,
to say the least, behind it, than a butterfly can go through a
sausage-machine without looking the worse for it. The Professor
gathered up the fragments of glass, and with them certain very
minute but entirely satisfactory documents which would have
identified and hanged any rogue in Christendom who had parted with
them. - The historical question, WHO DID IT? and the financial
question, WHO PAID FOR IT? were both settled before the new lamp
was lighted the next evening.
You see, my friends, what immense conclusions, touching our lives,
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
