| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: sold over again in small lots among the sons of the soil, the
peasantry,--excepting the pavilion, its dependencies, and fifty
surrounding acres, which Monsieur Gaubertin retained as a gift to his
poetic and sentimental spouse.
*
Many years after these events, during the year 1837, one of the most
remarkable political writers of the day, Emile Blondet, reached the
last stages of a poverty which he had so far hidden beneath an outward
appearance of ease and elegance. He was thinking of taking some
desperate step, realizing, as he did, that his writings, his mind, his
knowledge, his ability for the direction of affairs, had made him
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: conscious of claims on the score of inconvenient expense sustained
by him in presents of oysters and other eatables to his rich
cousin Peter; the other entirely saturnine, leaning his hands
and chin on a stick, and conscious of claims based on no narrow
performance but on merit generally: both blameless citizens
of Brassing, who wished that Jonah Featherstone did not live there.
The wit of a family is usually best received among strangers.
"Why, Trumbull himself is pretty sure of five hundred--THAT
you may depend,--I shouldn't wonder if my brother promised him,"
said Solomon, musing aloud with his sisters, the evening before
the funeral.
Middlemarch |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: and <312>an invincible repugnance in the breast of the white race
toward dark-colored people; and some very intelligent colored men
think that their proscription is owing solely to the color which
nature has given them. They hold that they are rated according
to their color, and that it is impossible for white people ever
to look upon dark races of men, or men belonging to the African
race, with other than feelings of aversion. My experience, both
serious and mirthful, combats this conclusion. Leaving out of
sight, for a moment, grave facts, to this point, I will state one
or two, which illustrate a very interesting feature of American
character as well as American prejudice. Riding from Boston to
My Bondage and My Freedom |
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 She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith: they in safety? Are they housed?
TONY. Five and twenty miles in two hours and a half is no such bad
driving. The poor beasts have smoked for it: rabbit me, but I'd rather
ride forty miles after a fox than ten with such varment.
HASTINGS. Well, but where have you left the ladies? I die with
impatience.
TONY. Left them! Why where should I leave them but where I found
them?
HASTINGS. This is a riddle.
TONY. Riddle me this then. What's that goes round the house, and
round the house, and never touches the house?
She Stoops to Conquer |
