| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: Chatelet stayed after the rest had gone to reassure Stanislas and his
wife, and to explain that all would go off well. In a duel between a
man of sixty and a man of thirty-five, all the advantage lay with the
latter.
Early next morning, as Lucien sat at breakfast with David, who had
come back alone from Marsac, in came Mme. Chardon with a scared face.
"Well, Lucien," she said, "have you heard the news? Everyone is
talking of it, even the people in the market. M. de Bargeton all but
killed M. de Chandour this morning in M. Tulloy's meadow; people are
making puns on the name. (Tue Poie.) It seems that M. de Chandour said
that he found you with Mme. de Bargeton yesterday."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from In Darkest England and The Way Out by General William Booth: character, none would be sent over the sea who had not been proved
worthy of this trust.
They would be inspired with an ambition to do well for themselves
and their fellow Colonists.
They would be instructed in all that concerned their future career.
They would be taught those industries in which they would be most
profitably employed.
They would be inured to the hardships they would have to endure.
They would be accustomed to the economies they would have to practise.
They would be made acquainted with the comrades with whom they would
have to live and labour.
In Darkest England and The Way Out |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from An International Episode by Henry James: "Oh, go to the Tower, and feel the ax, if you like," said Mrs. Westgate.
"I consent to your going with Mr. Woodley; but I should not let you go
with an Englishman."
"Miss Bessie wouldn't care to go with an Englishman!"
Mr. Woodley declared with a faint asperity that was, perhaps,
not unnatural in a young man, who, dressing in the manner
that I have indicated and knowing a great deal, as I have said,
about London, saw no reason for drawing these sharp distinctions.
He agreed upon a day with Miss Bessie--a day of that same week.
An ingenious mind might, perhaps, trace a connection between the young
girl's allusion to her destitution of social privileges and a question
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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 Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: choose to sell out at the right time, well, they didn't. "It's the shares
that you sell, not the shares you keep, that make the money."
But if they couldn't sell them?
Here Peter Halket hesitated.--Well, the British Government would have to
buy them, if they were so bad no one else would; and then no one would
lose. "The British Government can't let British share-holders suffer."
He'd heard that often enough. The British taxpayer would have to pay for
the Chartered Company, for the soldiers, and all the other things, if IT
couldn't, and take over the shares if it went smash, because there were
lords and dukes and princes connected with it. And why shouldn't they pay
for his company? He would have a lord in it too!
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