| 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: thousands of francs, six thousand even at a swoop (it depends on the
importance of the case), for conferences with So-and-so, and expenses,
and drafts, and memorials, and your jargon. A man must learn to look
out for business of this kind. I will recommend you as a most
competent, clever attorney. I will send you such a lot of work of this
sort that your colleagues will be fit to burst with envy. Werbrust,
Palma, and Gigonnet, my cronies, shall hand over their expropriations
to you; they have plenty of them, the Lord knows! So you will have two
practices--the one you are buying, and the other I will build up for
you. You ought almost to pay me fifteen per cent on my loan.'
" 'So be it, but no more,' said I, with the firmness which means that
Gobseck |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw: HYPATIA. _[angrily]_ I do declare, mamma, that Johnny's brutality
makes it impossible to live in the house with him.
JOHNNY. _[deeply hurt]_ It's twenty-seven years, mother, since you
had that row with me for licking Robert and giving Hypatia a black eye
because she bit me. I promised you then that I'd never raise my hand
to one of them again; and Ive never broken my word. And now because
this young whelp begins to cry out before he's hurt, you treat me as
if I were a brute and a savage.
MRS TARLETON. No dear, not a savage; but you know you must not call
our visitor naughty names.
BENTLEY. Oh, let him alone--
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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 Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: Babington's villainous conspiracy: I know not. This book is a
history of men,--of men's virtues and sins, victories and defeats;
and Eustace is a man no longer: he is become a thing, a tool, a
Jesuit; which goes only where it is sent, and does good or evil
indifferently as it is bid; which, by an act of moral suicide, has
lost its soul, in the hope of saving it; without a will, a
conscience, a responsibility (as it fancies), to God or man, but
only to "The Society." In a word, Eustace, as he says himself, is
"dead." Twice dead, I fear. Let the dead bury their dead. We
have no more concern with Eustace Leigh.
CHAPTER XXIII
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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 Case of the Registered Letter by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: once the lure of the trail has caught him. He scarcely eats or
sleeps when the chase is on, he does not seem to know human
weakness nor fatigue, in spite of his frail body. Once put on
a case his mind delves and delves until it finds a clue, then
something awakes within him, a spirit akin to that which holds
the bloodhound nose to trail, and he will accomplish the apparently
impossible, he will track down his victim when the entire machinery
of a great police department seems helpless to discover anything.
The high chiefs and commissioners grant a condescending permission
when Muller asks, "May I do this? ... or may I handle this case
this way?" both parties knowing all the while that it is a farce,
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