| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: --for old iron, brass, and lead, or any metal under any shape it might
lurk in. The Auvergnat would give, for instance, a brown earthenware
saucepan worth two sous for a pound of lead, two pounds of iron, a
broken spade or hoe or a cracked kettle; and being invariably the
judge of his own cause, he did the weighing.
At the close of his third year Sauviat added the hawking of tin and
copper ware to that of his pottery. In 1793 he was able to buy a
chateau sold as part of the National domain, which he at once pulled
to pieces. The profits were such that he repeated the process at
several points of the sphere in which he operated; later, these first
successful essays gave him the idea of proposing something of a like
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The United States Constitution: the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power
to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States,
except in Cases of impeachment.
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the
Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators
present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice
and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public
Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other
Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein
otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law:
but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers,
The United States Constitution |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: have led his life and "turned out," if he had not so, at the
outset, given it up. And confessing for the first time to the
intensity within him of this absurd speculation - which but proved
also, no doubt, the habit of too selfishly thinking - he affirmed
the impotence there of any other source of interest, any other
native appeal. "What would it have made of me, what would it have
made of me? I keep for ever wondering, all idiotically; as if I
could possibly know! I see what it has made of dozens of others,
those I meet, and it positively aches within me, to the point of
exasperation, that it would have made something of me as well.
Only I can't make out what, and the worry of it, the small rage of
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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 In Darkest England and The Way Out by General William Booth: Colonial Bank.
B. C., a man of good birth, education, and position; drank himself out
of home and friends and into gaol on leaving which he came to our Home;
was saved, exhibiting by an earnest and truly consistent life the depth
of his conversion, being made instrumental while with us in the
salvation of many who, like himself, had come to utter destitution and
crime through drink. He is now in a first-class situation, getting
#300 a year, wife and family restored, the possessor of a happy home,
and the love of God shed abroad in it.
I do not produce these samples, which are but a few, taken at random
from the many, for the purpose of boasting. The power which has
In Darkest England and The Way Out |
