| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: Lacedaemonians. Take them at the starting-point and they are but a
single community, but as they advance and attach city after city they
grow more numerous and more resistless. I observe that when people
wish to take wasps' nests--if they try to capture the creatures on the
wing, they are liable to be attacked by half the hive; whereas, if
they apply fire to them ere they leave their homes, they will master
them without scathe themselves. On this principle I think it best to
bring about the battle within the hive itself, or, short of that, as
close to Lacedaemon as possible."[5]
[5] Or, "if not actually at Lacedaemon, then at least as near as
possible to the hornet's nest."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: good Kolb; they will offer you thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of
francs, to tell----"
"Dey may offer me millions," cried Kolb, "but not ein vort from me
shall dey traw. Haf I not peen in der army, and know my orders?"
"Well, you are warned. March, and ask M. Petit-Claud to go with you as
witness."
"Yes," said the Alsacien. "Some tay I hope to be rich enough to dust
der chacket of dat man of law. I don't like his gountenance."
"Kolb is a good man, madame," said Big Marion; "he is as strong as a
Turk, and as meek as a lamb. Just the one that would make a woman
happy. It was his notion, too, to invest our savings this way--
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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 The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: a particularly confidential undertone, many of the people liked to
get lead poisoning, especially the women, because it caused
abortion. I might not believe it, but he knew it for a fact.
Fifthly, the work-people simply would not learn the gravity of the
danger, and would eat with unwashed hands, and incur all sorts of
risks, so that as my uncle put it: "the fools deserve what they
get." Sixthly, he and several associated firms had organised a
simple and generous insurance scheme against lead-poisoning risks.
Seventhly, he never wearied in rational (as distinguished from
excessive, futile and expensive) precautions against the disease.
Eighthly, in the ill-equipped shops of his minor competitors lead
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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 Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: as a proof that your other duties are equally neglected."
I knew well therefore what would be my father's feelings, but I
could not tear my thoughts from my employment, loathsome in itself,
but which had taken an irresistible hold of my imagination. I
wished, as it were, to procrastinate all that related to my
feelings of affection until the great object, which swallowed up
every habit of my nature, should be completed.
I then thought that my father would be unjust if he ascribed my
neglect to vice or faultiness on my part, but I am now convinced
that he was justified in conceiving that I should not be
altogether free from blame. A human being in perfection ought
Frankenstein |
