| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: Such had been, up to the year 1809, the general course of this
household, which had nothing in common with the ordinary run of
conventional ideas, though the outward life of these two persons,
secretly full of love and joy, was like that of other people.
Balthazar Claes's passion for his wife, which she had known how to
perpetuate, seemed, to use his own expression, to spend its inborn
vigor and fidelity on the cultivation of happiness, which was far
better than the cultivation of tulips (though to that he had always
had a leaning), and dispensed him from the duty of following a mania
like his ancestors.
At the close of this year, the mind and the manners of Balthazar Claes
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: You get it and your vanity is pleased, your spirit contented.
Suppose your friends deride the hat, make fun of it: at once it
loses its value; you are ashamed of it, you put it out of your
sight, you never want to see it again.
Y.M. I think I see. Go on.
O.M. It is the same hat, isn't it? It is in no way
altered. But it wasn't the HAT you wanted, but only what it
stood for--a something to please and content your SPIRIT. When
it failed of that, the whole of its value was gone. There are no
MATERIAL values; there are only spiritual ones. You will hunt in
vain for a material value that is ACTUAL, REAL--there is no such
What is Man? |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: but that didn't weigh with me in those youthfully-narrow times.
It was one of the intense minor irritations of my married life
that Smithie's whirlwind chatter seemed to me to have far more
influence with Marion than anything I had to say. Before all
things I coveted her grip upon Marion's inaccessible mind.
In the workroom at Smithie's, I gathered, they always spoke of me
demurely as "A Certain Person." I was rumoured to be dreadfully
"clever," and there were doubts--not altogether without
justification--of the sweetness of my temper.
II
Well, these general explanations will enable the reader to
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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 The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: "No, sir. Not much," he assented, sleepily, in his hoarse voice,
with just enough deference, no more, and barely suppressing a yawn.
"Well, that's all you have to look out for. You have got your orders."
"Yes, sir."
I paced a turn or two on the poop and saw him take up his position face
forward with his elbow in the ratlines of the mizzen rigging before I
went below. The mate's faint snoring was still going on peacefully.
The cuddy lamp was burning over the table on which stood a vase
with flowers, a polite attention from the ship's provision merchant--
the last flowers we should see for the next three months at the very least.
Two bunches of bananas hung from the beam symmetrically, one on each
The Secret Sharer |
