| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: protests against this insolent desecration of God's day
that the Methodists of Octavius still felt themselves
peculiarly bound to hold this horse-car line, its management,
and everything connected with it, in unbending aversion.
At least once a year they were accustomed to expect a
sermon denouncing it and all its impious Sunday patrons.
Theron made a mental resolve that this year they should
be disappointed.
Another burning problem, which he had not been called
upon before to confront, he found now entangled with the
mysterious line which divided a circus from a menagerie.
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: should be employed for the maintenance of the right only. The revelation
of another life is a recapitulation of the argument in a figure.
(2) Socrates makes the singular remark, that he is himself the only true
politician of his age. In other passages, especially in the Apology, he
disclaims being a politician at all. There he is convinced that he or any
other good man who attempted to resist the popular will would be put to
death before he had done any good to himself or others. Here he
anticipates such a fate for himself, from the fact that he is 'the only man
of the present day who performs his public duties at all.' The two points
of view are not really inconsistent, but the difference between them is
worth noticing: Socrates is and is not a public man. Not in the ordinary
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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 Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: appearance of his friend.
When Pere Grandet went to "see something," the notary knew by
experience there was something to be got by going with him; so he
went.
"Come, Cruchot," said Grandet, "you are one of my friends. I'll show
you what folly it is to plant poplar-trees on good ground."
"Do you call the sixty thousand francs that you pocketed for those
that were in your fields down by the Loire, folly?" said Maitre
Cruchot, opening his eyes with amazement. "What luck you have had! To
cut down your trees at the very time they ran short of white-wood at
Nantes, and to sell them at thirty francs!"
Eugenie Grandet |
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 Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: 'Quick, men, get down. We may save him yet.'
But there was no path, and night was come, and the men's nerves
were shaken. The lanthorns had to be lit, and the way to be
retraced; by the time we reached the dark pool which lay below,
the last bubbles were gone from the surface, the last ripples had
beaten themselves out against the banks. The pool still rocked
sullenly, and the yellow light showed a man's hat floating, and
near it a glove three parts submerged. But that was all. The
mute's dying grip had known no loosening, nor his hate any fear.
I heard afterwards that when they dragged the two out next day,
his fingers were in the other's eye-sockets, his teeth in his
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