| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: condition of the population, which we can never completely reform
without the potent aid of the cures. This remark does not apply to you
in any way, M. Janvier."
"Nor do I take it to myself," laughed the cure. "Is not my heart set
on bringing the teaching of the Catholic religion to co-operate with
your plans of administration? For instance, I have often tried, in my
pulpit discourses on theft, to imbue the folk of this parish with the
very ideas of Right to which you have just given utterance. For truly,
God does not estimate theft by the value of the thing stolen, He looks
at the thief. That has been the gist of the parables which I have
tried to adapt to the comprehension of my parishioners."
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: better than the Chalcedonian giant; he can put a whole company of people
into a passion and out of one again by his mighty magic, and is first-rate
at inventing or disposing of any sort of calumny on any grounds or none.
All of them agree in asserting that a speech should end in a
recapitulation, though they do not all agree to use the same word.
PHAEDRUS: You mean that there should be a summing up of the arguments in
order to remind the hearers of them.
SOCRATES: I have now said all that I have to say of the art of rhetoric:
have you anything to add?
PHAEDRUS: Not much; nothing very important.
SOCRATES: Leave the unimportant and let us bring the really important
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: agreeable, and I was ganging to put on a fire for you in the Red
Room; but if it is your will to stay here, he that pays the
lawing maun choose the lodging."
I endeavoured to engage her in conversation; but though she
answered, with a kind of stiff civility, I could get her into no
freedom of discourse, and she began to look at her wheel and at
the door more than once, as if she meditated a retreat. I was
obliged, therefore, to proceed to some special questions; that
might have interest for a person whose ideas were probably of a
very bounded description.
I looked round the apartment, being the same in which I had last
|
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 A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: With the annexions of fair gems enrich'd,
And deep-brain'd sonnets that did amplify
Each stone's dear nature, worth, and quality.
'The diamond, why 'twas beautiful and hard,
Whereto his invis'd properties did tend;
The deep-green emerald, in whose fresh regard
Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend;
The heaven-hued sapphire and the opal blend
With objects manifold; each several stone,
With wit well blazon'd, smil'd, or made some moan.
'Lo! all these trophies of affections hot,
|
