| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: "Now," said the Poor Thing, "they have told you a lesson, but make
them give you a gift. Stoop your hand among the bones without
drawback, and you shall find their treasure."
So the man stooped his hand, and the dead laid hold upon it many
and faint like ants; but he shook them off, and behold, what he
brought up in his hand was the shoe of a horse, and it was rusty.
"It is a thing of no price," quoth the man, "for it is rusty."
"We shall see that," said the Poor Thing; "for in my thought it is
a good thing to do what our fathers did, and to keep what they kept
without question. And in my thought one thing is as good as
another in this world; and a shoe of a horse will do."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: nobody was sorry for his absence, or feared it would be too long.
The doctor and his wife, uncle and aunt Kimble, were there, and the
annual Christmas talk was carried through without any omissions,
rising to the climax of Mr. Kimble's experience when he walked the
London hospitals thirty years back, together with striking
professional anecdotes then gathered. Whereupon cards followed,
with aunt Kimble's annual failure to follow suit, and uncle Kimble's
irascibility concerning the odd trick which was rarely explicable to
him, when it was not on his side, without a general visitation of
tricks to see that they were formed on sound principles: the whole
being accompanied by a strong steaming odour of spirits-and-water.
Silas Marner |
