| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Economist by Xenophon: ergazesthai e epimeleisthai}, transl. "between toil and
carefulness well or ill expended there lies all the difference;
the two things are sundered as wide apart as are the poles of work
and play," etc. A. Jacobs' emend. ap. Hartm. "An. Xen." p. 211,
{to de de kakos ergazesthai e kakos epimeleisthai kei to kalos},
seems happy.
[27] Or, "such a hoer aught but an idle loon."
Such, Socrates, are the ills which cause a house to crumble far more
than lack of scientific knowledge, however rude it be.[28] For if you
will consider; on the one hand, there is a steady outflow[29] of
expenses from the house, and, on the other, a lack of profitable works
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James: "old-fashioned," as the word is of children - quaint or wizened or
offensive. It was as if he had been a little gentleman and had
paid the penalty by discovering that he was the only such person in
his family. This comparison didn't make him vain, but it could
make him melancholy and a trifle austere. While Pemberton guessed
at these dim young things, shadows of shadows, he was partly drawn
on and partly checked, as for a scruple, by the charm of attempting
to sound the little cool shallows that were so quickly growing
deeper. When he tried to figure to himself the morning twilight of
childhood, so as to deal with it safely, he saw it was never fixed,
never arrested, that ignorance, at the instant he touched it, was
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: carried the point to an adviser. 'Nonsense!' he cried. 'That's
the old woman, the mother. It doesn't belong to her. I believe
that's the man the house belongs to,' and he pointed to one of the
coloured photographs on the wall. On this I gave up all desire of
understanding; and when the time came for me to leave, in the
judgment-hall of the archipelago, and with the awful countenance of
the acting Governor, I duly paid my rent to Taniera. He was
satisfied, and so was I. But what had he to do with it? Mr.
Donat, acting magistrate and a man of kindred blood, could throw no
light upon the mystery; a plain private person, with a taste for
letters, cannot be expected to do more.
|
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 Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: fingerprints must be sought. The twins might have no case WITH them,
but they certainly would have none without him.
So Wilson mooned around, thinking, thinking, guessing, guessing,
day and night, and arriving nowhere. Whenever he ran
across a girl or a woman he was not acquainted with, he got her
fingerprints, on one pretext or another; and they always cost him
a sigh when he got home, for they never tallied with the finger
marks on the knife handle.
As to the mysterious girl, Tom swore he knew no such girl,
and did not remember ever seeing a girl wearing a dress like the
one described by Wilson. He admitted that he did not always lock
|
