| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Identified His hidden face?
Who knows but He may like as well
My story as one you may tell?
And if He show me there be Peace
On Earth, as there be fields and trees
Outside a jail-yard, am I wrong
If now I sing Him a new song?
Your world is in yourself, my friend,
For your endurance to the end;
And all the Peace there is on Earth
Is faith in what your world is worth,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Adventure by Jack London: was indebted for material prosperity to Joan--to the slender,
level-browed girl with romance shining out of her gray eyes and
adventure shouting from the long-barrelled Colt's on her hip, who
had landed on the beach that piping gale, along with her stalwart
Tahitian crew, and who had entered his bungalow to hang with boy's
hands her revolver-belt and Baden-Powell hat on the nail by the
billiard table. He forgot all the early exasperations, remembering
only her charms and sweetnesses and glorying much in the traits he
at first had disliked most--her boyishness and adventurousness, her
delight to swim and risk the sharks, her desire to go recruiting,
her love of the sea and ships, her sharp authoritative words when
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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 Cratylus by Plato: his own is a true name, but will not allow that the name of Hermogenes is
equally true. Hermogenes asks Socrates to explain to him what Cratylus
means; or, far rather, he would like to know, What Socrates himself thinks
about the truth or correctness of names? Socrates replies, that hard is
knowledge, and the nature of names is a considerable part of knowledge: he
has never been to hear the fifty-drachma course of Prodicus; and having
only attended the single-drachma course, he is not competent to give an
opinion on such matters. When Cratylus denies that Hermogenes is a true
name, he supposes him to mean that he is not a true son of Hermes, because
he is never in luck. But he would like to have an open council and to hear
both sides.
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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 Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: sent back to school in charge of my brother. I lost the dinner at the
Freres Provencaux, and was deprived of seeing Talma in Britannicus.
Such was my first interview with my mother after a separation of
twelve years.
When I had finished school my father left me under the guardianship of
Monsieur Lepitre. I was to study the higher mathematics, follow a
course of law for one year, and begin philosophy. Allowed to study in
my own room and released from the classes, I expected a truce with
trouble. But, in spite of my nineteen years, perhaps because of them,
my father persisted in the system which had sent me to school without
food, to an academy without pocket-money, and had driven me into debt
The Lily of the Valley |
