| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: half as much again as the horse was worth. You'll be lucky if you
get a hundred."
Keating rode up now, and the transaction became more complicated.
It ended in the purchase of the horse by Bryce for a hundred and
twenty, to be paid on the delivery of Wildfire, safe and sound, at
the Batherley stables. It did occur to Dunsey that it might be wise
for him to give up the day's hunting, proceed at once to Batherley,
and, having waited for Bryce's return, hire a horse to carry him
home with the money in his pocket. But the inclination for a run,
encouraged by confidence in his luck, and by a draught of brandy
from his pocket-pistol at the conclusion of the bargain, was not
Silas Marner |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: which is given by Socrates is quite sufficient, viz. that the philosopher
may talk and write as he pleases. But though not very closely connected,
neither is the digression out of keeping with the rest of the dialogue.
The philosopher naturally desires to pour forth the thoughts which are
always present to him, and to discourse of the higher life. The idea of
knowledge, although hard to be defined, is realised in the life of
philosophy. And the contrast is the favourite antithesis between the
world, in the various characters of sophist, lawyer, statesman, speaker,
and the philosopher,--between opinion and knowledge,--between the
conventional and the true.
The greater part of the dialogue is devoted to setting up and throwing down
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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 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: They began to weep and their curses struggled in their throats with
sobs. The other little boys clasped their hands and wriggled their
legs in excitement. They formed a bobbing circle about the pair.
A tiny spectator was suddenly agitated.
"Cheese it, Jimmie, cheese it! Here comes yer fader," he yelled.
The circle of little boys instantly parted. They drew away
and waited in ecstatic awe for that which was about to happen.
The two little boys fighting in the modes of four thousand years ago,
did not hear the warning.
Up the avenue there plodded slowly a man with sullen eyes.
He was carrying a dinner pail and smoking an apple-wood pipe.
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
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 The Mountains by Stewart Edward White: ideas, it was with a mental reservation. You caught
her sardonic eye fixed on you contemptuously. You
felt at once that she knew another method, a much
better method, with which yours compared most
unfavorably. "I'd like to kick you in the stomach,"
Wes used to say; "you know too much for a horse!"
If one of the horses bucked under the pack, Dinkey
deliberately tried to stampede the others--and
generally succeeded. She invariably led them off
whenever she could escape her picket-rope. In
case of trouble of any sort, instead of standing still
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