| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: friend. The Spanish lady took her revenge very much as Celimene took
hers on Arsinoe.
"My dear, are you ignorant--you who know the provinces so well--can
you be ignorant of what a mother is capable when she has on her hands
a daughter whom she cannot marry for want of 'dot' and lovers, want of
beauty, want of mind, and, sometimes, want of everything? Why, a
mother in that position would rob a diligence or commit a murder, or
wait for a man at the corner of a street--she would sacrifice herself
twenty times over, if she was a mother at all. Now, as you and I both
know, there are many such in that situation in Bordeaux, and no doubt
they attribute to us their own thoughts and actions. Naturalists have
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pathology of Lying, Etc. by William and Mary Healy: When it comes to consideration of such an instance as Case 11 we
have the point more strongly brought out. Here the individual is
fairly swung down his life's course as the irregularity of his
capacities direct. His language ability carries him along as
nothing else will. In corroboration of this interesting point
the conclusions of other authors should be noted.
The aberrational types which show pathological lying are, several
of them, depicted in our Chapter VI. But little in summary of
them needs to be said. The general mental and moral weakness of
the constitutional inferior very naturally leads him to become a
pathological liar; he follows, by virtue of his make-up, the path
|
