| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: husband who can give you the finest 'dozen' ever seen in the
provinces. Now attend to me, little girl. There's a fine chance for
you; you can put your six thousand francs into government funds, and
you will receive every six months nearly two hundred francs interest,
without taxes, or repairs, or frost, or hail, or floods, or anything
else to swallow up the money. Perhaps you don't like to part with your
gold, hey, my girl? Never mind, bring it to me all the same. I'll get
you some more like it,--like those Dutch coins and the /portugaises/,
the rupees of Mogul, and the /genovines/,--I'll give you some more on
your fete-days, and in three years you'll have got back half your
little treasure. What's that you say? Look up, now. Come, go and get
Eugenie Grandet |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from On Revenues by Xenophon: in the mining district various sources of revenue will accrue, whether
from the market at Sunium, or from the various state buildings in
connection with the silver mines, from furnaces and all the rest.
Since we must expect a thickly populated city to spring up here, if
organised in the way proposed, and plots of land will become as
valuable to owners out there as they are to those who possess them in
the neighbourhood of the capital.
[63] I adopt Zurborg's correction, {prosphora} for {eisphora}, as
obviously right. See above, iv. 23.
If, at this point, I may assume my proposals to have been carried into
effect, I think I can promise, not only that our city shall be
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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 Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw: something in this young gentleman's advice. Read something.
TARLETON. I'll read King Lear.
HYPATIA. Dont. I'm very sorry, dear.
TARLETON. Youre not. Youre laughing at me. Serve me right! Parents
and children! No man should know his own child. No child should know
its own father. Let the family be rooted out of civilization! Let
the human race be brought up in institutions!
HYPATIA. Oh yes. How jolly! You and I might be friends then; and
Joey could stay to dinner.
TARLETON. Let him stay to dinner. Let him stay to breakfast. Let
him spend his life here. Dont you say I drove him out. Dont you say
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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 King Lear by William Shakespeare: farmer's dog bark at a beggar?
Glou. Ay, sir.
Lear. And the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst
behold
the great image of authority: a dog's obeyed in office.
Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand!
Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back.
Thou hotly lusts to use her in that kind
For which thou whip'st her. The usurer hangs the cozener.
Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear;
Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
King Lear |
