| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: Your heart has divined in me something superior
To that which I seem; from my innermost nature
Not wholly expell'd by the world's usurpature?
Some instinct of earnestness, truth, or desire
For truth? Some one spark of the soul's native fire
Moving under the ashes, and cinders, and dust
Which life hath heap'd o'er it? Some one fact to trust
And to hope in? Or by you alone am I deem'd
The mere frivolous fool I so often have seem'd
To my own self?"
JOHN.
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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 Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: days' sight, with three witnesses and guarantees. He may seem
captious, wrong-headed, inconsequent, vacillating, and without any
fixed opinions; but let something serious turn up, some combination to
scheme out, he will not scatter himself like Blondet here, who chooses
these occasions to look at things from his neighbor's point of view.
Rastignac concentrates himself, pulls himself together, looks for the
point to carry by storm, and goes full tilt for it. He charges like a
Murat, breaks squares, pounds away at shareholders, promoters, and the
whole shop, and returns, when the breach is made, to his lazy,
careless life. Once more he becomes the man of the South, the man of
pleasure, the trifling, idle Rastignac. He has earned the right of
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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 American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: before the authorities at Washington could begin to fill up even
the third skeleton battalions, much less hunt about for material
for the fourth; (c) civil war, in which, as the case in the
affair of the North and South, the regular army would be swamped
in the mass of militia and armed volunteers would turn the land
into a hell.
Yet the authorities persist in regarding an external war as a
thing to be seriously considered.
The Power that would disembark troops on American soil would be
capable of heaving a shovelful of mud into the Atlantic in the
hope of filling it up. Consequently, the authorities are
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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 Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: d-d-don't want to be r-r-ruined. Hein? isn't it so?"
"Certainly," said the president. "I'm of opinion that in a few months
the debts might be bought up for a certain sum, and then paid in full
by an agreement. Ha! ha! you can coax a dog a long way if you show him
a bit of lard. If there has been no declaration of failure, and you
hold a lien on the debts, you come out of the business as white as the
driven snow."
"Sn-n-now," said Grandet, putting his hand to his ear, "wh-wh-what
about s-now?"
"But," cried the president, "do pray attend to what I am saying."
"I am at-t-tending."
Eugenie Grandet |
