| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: but--I--do--NOT--know--your diamonds. If Mme. la Comtesse can put her
name to a bill, she can go into business, of course, and buy and sell
diamonds on her own account. The thing is plain on the face of it!'
" 'Good-day, sir!' cried the Count, now white with rage. 'There are
courts of justice.'
" 'Quite so.'
" 'This gentleman here,' he added, indicating me, 'was a witness of
the sale.'
" 'That is possible.'
"The Count turned to go. Feeling the gravity of the affair, I suddenly
put in between the two belligerents.
Gobseck |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells: from without. But now that they are loose, now that they are in
war, we have to face their full possibilities, to use our
advantage in them and press on to the end of the war. In support
of a photo-aero directed artillery, even our present Tanks can be
used to complete an invisible offensive. We shall not so much
push as ram. It is doubtful if the Germans can get anything of
the sort into action before six months are out. We ought to get
the war on to German soil before the Tanks have grown to more
than three or four times their present size. Then it will not
matter so much how much bigger they grow. It will be the German
landscape that will suffer.
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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 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: no longer find his bearings.
What was he to do now? To deliver up Jean Valjean was bad;
to leave Jean Valjean at liberty was bad. In the first case,
the man of authority fell lower than the man of the galleys,
in the second, a convict rose above the law, and set his foot
upon it. In both cases, dishonor for him, Javert. There was
disgrace in any resolution at which he might arrive. Destiny has
some extremities which rise perpendicularly from the impossible,
and beyond which life is no longer anything but a precipice.
Javert had reached one of those extremities.
One of his anxieties consisted in being constrained to think.
Les Miserables |
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 De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: that could have happened to me: for that phrase would savour of
too great bitterness towards myself. I would sooner say, or hear
it said of me, that I was so typical a child of my age, that in my
perversity, and for that perversity's sake, I turned the good
things of my life to evil, and the evil things of my life to good.
What is said, however, by myself or by others, matters little. The
important thing, the thing that lies before me, the thing that I
have to do, if the brief remainder of my days is not to be maimed,
marred, and incomplete, is to absorb into my nature all that has
been done to me, to make it part of me, to accept it without
complaint, fear, or reluctance. The supreme vice is shallowness.
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