| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Daisy Miller by Henry James: in that case. "Don't you want to come and teach Randolph?" she asked.
Winterbourne said that nothing could possibly please him so much,
but that he unfortunately other occupations. "Other occupations?
I don't believe it!" said Miss Daisy. "What do you mean?
You are not in business." The young man admitted that he was not
in business; but he had engagements which, even within a day or two,
would force him to go back to Geneva. "Oh, bother!" she said;
"I don't believe it!" and she began to talk about something else.
But a few moments later, when he was pointing out to her the pretty
design of an antique fireplace, she broke out irrelevantly,
"You don't mean to say you are going back to Geneva?"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: supposing I was young in French, took the liberty to inform me, I
should not have said TANT PIS - but, TANT MIEUX. TANT MIEUX,
TOUJOURS, MONSIEUR, said he, when there is any thing to be got -
TANT PIS, when there is nothing. It comes to the same thing, said
I. PARDONNEZ-MOI, said the landlord.
I cannot take a fitter opportunity to observe, once for all, that
TANT PIS and TANT MIEUX, being two of the great hinges in French
conversation, a stranger would do well to set himself right in the
use of them, before he gets to Paris.
A prompt French marquis at our ambassador's table demanded of Mr.
H-, if he was H- the poet? No, said Mr. H-, mildly. - TANT PIS,
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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 Theaetetus by Plato: the body. Both science and poetry are made up of associations or
recollections, but we must observe also that the mind is not wholly
dependent on them, having also the power of origination.
There are other processes of the mind which it is good for us to study when
we are at home and by ourselves,--the manner in which thought passes into
act, the conflict of passion and reason in many stages, the transition from
sensuality to love or sentiment and from earthly love to heavenly, the slow
and silent influence of habit, which little by little changes the nature of
men, the sudden change of the old nature of man into a new one, wrought by
shame or by some other overwhelming impulse. These are the greater
phenomena of mind, and he who has thought of them for himself will live and
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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 A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: in the art of making good bacon, so much wanted among us by the
great destruction of pigs, too frequent at our tables; which are
no way comparable in taste or magnificence to a well grown, fat
yearly child, which roasted whole will make a considerable figure
at a Lord Mayor's feast, or any other publick entertainment. But
this, and many others, I omit, being studious of brevity.
Supposing that one thousand families in this city, would be
constant customers for infants flesh, besides others who might
have it at merry meetings, particularly at weddings and
christenings, I compute that Dublin would take off annually about
twenty thousand carcasses; and the rest of the kingdom (where
A Modest Proposal |
