| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: other signs of the threatened storm were visible.
Then it broke.
One morning an important-looking envelope lay in her letter-box.
It was long and puffy, and was stamped in the upper corner with a
picture of a brewery in full operation. One end bore an
inscription addressed to the postmaster, stating that in case Mr.
Thomas Grogan was not found within ten days, it should be returned
to Schwartz & Co., Brewers.
The village post-office had several other letter-boxes, faced with
glass, so that the contents of each could be seen from the
outside. Two of these contained similar envelopes, looking
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Hamlet by William Shakespeare: Take these againe, for to the Noble minde
Rich gifts wax poore, when giuers proue vnkinde.
There my Lord
Ham. Ha, ha: Are you honest?
Ophe. My Lord
Ham. Are you faire?
Ophe. What meanes your Lordship?
Ham. That if you be honest and faire, your Honesty
should admit no discourse to your Beautie
Ophe. Could Beautie my Lord, haue better Comerce
then your Honestie?
Hamlet |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Cavalry General by Xenophon: obtain the favour of the gods by sacrifices in behalf of the state
cavalry; and in the next place to make the great procession at the
festivals a spectacle worth seeing; and further, with regard to all
those public shows demanded by the state, wherever held,[1] whether in
the grounds of the Acadamy or the Lyceum, at Phaleron or within the
hippodrome, it is his business as commander of the knights to see that
every pageant of the sort is splendidly exhibited.
[1] Cf. Theophr. "Ch." vii. (Jebb ad loc. p. 204, n. 25).
But these, again, are memoranda.[2] To the question how the several
features of the pageant shall receive their due impress of beauty, I
will now address myself.
|
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 Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: two sisters welded together by misfortune, as Rita-Christina by the
hand of Nature. Many men, driven to marriage, prefer a girl taken from
a convent, and saturated with piety, to a girl brought up to worldly
ideas. There seems to be no middle course. A man must marry either an
educated girl, who reads the newspapers and comments upon them, who
waltzes with a dozen young men, goes to the theatre, devours novels,
cares nothing for religion, and makes her own ethics, or an ignorant
and innocent young girl, like either of the two Maries. Perhaps there
may be as much danger with the one kind as with the other. Yet the
vast majority of men who are not so old as Arnolphe, prefer a
religious Agnes to a budding Celimene.
|
