| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: only to find the accursed canal shares which Gigonnet had foisted on
Matifat in lieu of cash.
"They had not long to wait for the crash. The firm of Claparon did
business on too large a scale, the capital was locked up, the concern
ceased to serve its purposes, or to pay dividends, though the
speculations were sound. These misfortunes coincided with the events
of 1827. In 1829 it was too well known that Claparon was a man of
straw set up by the two giants; he fell from his pedestal. Shares that
had fetched twelve hundred and fifty francs fell to four hundred,
though intrinsically they were worth six. Nucingen, knowing their
value, bought them up at four.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: Thracians, in the fury of their worship on the mountains,
when they were possessed by the god and became
'wild beasts,' actually tore with their teeth and hands
any hares, goats, fawns or the like that they came
across. . . . The Orphic congregations of later times, in
their most holy gatherings, solemnly partook of the blood
of a bull, which was by a mystery the blood of Dionysus-
Zagreus himself, the Bull of God, slain in sacrifice for the
purification of man."[2]
[1] See Notes to his translation of the Bacch of Euripides.
[2] For a description of this orgy see Theocritus, Idyll xxvi;
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from On Horsemanship by Xenophon: and have brought him home."
[2] i.e. "where he will be brought as frequently as possible under the
master's eye." Cf. "Econ." xii. 20.
Nor is it only to avoid the risk of food being stolen that a secure
horse-box is desirable, but for the further reason that if the horse
takes to scattering his food, the action is at once detected; and any
one who observes that happening may take it as a sign and symptom
either of too much blood,[3] which calls for veterinary aid, or of
over-fatigue, for which rest is the cure, or else that an attack of
indigestion[4] or some other malady is coming on. And just as with
human beings, so with the horse, all diseases are more curable at
On Horsemanship |
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 Middlemarch by George Eliot: going immediately, was a fact to embitter Sir James's suspicions,
or at least to justify his aversion to a "young fellow" whom he
represented to himself as slight, volatile, and likely enough to show
such recklessness as naturally went along with a position unriveted
by family ties or a strict profession. But he had just heard something
from Standish which, while it justified these surmises about Will,
offered a means of nullifying all danger with regard to Dorothea.
Unwonted circumstances may make us all rather unlike ourselves:
there are conditions under which the most majestic person is obliged
to sneeze, and our emotions are liable to be acted on in the same
incongruous manner. Good Sir James was this morning so far unlike
Middlemarch |
