| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Poems by T. S. Eliot: The epileptic on the bed
Curves backward, clutching at her sides.
The ladies of the corridor
Find themselves involved, disgraced,
Call witness to their principles
And deprecate the lack of taste
Observing that hysteria
Might easily be misunderstood;
Mrs. Turner intimates
It does the house no sort of good.
But Doris, towelled from the bath,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: Monarchy.
"Oh! my dear, my dear! M. l'Abbe is dying!" cried out old Madame
Ragon. She caught up a flask of vinegar, and tried to restore the old
priest to consciousness.
"He must have given me the handkerchief that the King used to wipe his
brow on the way to his martyrdom," murmured he. " . . . Poor man!
. . . There was a heart in the steel blade, when none was found in all
France . . . "
The perfumers thought that the poor abbe was raving.
PARIS, January 183l.
ADDENDUM
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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 A Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving: came from the culprit. The customary three final blows on the
stomach were inflicted, but still the little man lived. Alive
and broken, he was thrown on to the fire. His burnt ashes,
scattered to the winds, were picked up eagerly by the mob,
reputed, as in England the pieces of the hangman's rope,
talismans.
Some two months after the execution of her husband Mme. Derues
was delivered in the Conciergerie of a male child; it is hardly
surprising, in face of her experiences during her pregnancy, that
it was born an idiot. In January, 1778, the judges of the
Parliament, by a majority of one, decided that she should remain
A Book of Remarkable Criminals |
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 Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes: take as many more, for you may have it all your own way and stretch
yourself to your heart's content. Oh that I could see burnt and turned
to ashes the first man that meddled with knight-errantry or at any
rate the first who chose to be squire to such fools as all the
knights-errant of past times must have been! Of those of the present
day I say nothing, because, as your worship is one of them, I
respect them, and because I know your worship knows a point more
than the devil in all you say and think."
"I would lay a good wager with you, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "that
now that you are talking on without anyone to stop you, you don't feel
a pain in your whole body. Talk away, my son, say whatever comes
Don Quixote |
