| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The War in the Air by H. G. Wells: insecurity in a small, dissolute-looking shop in the High Street,
adorned with brilliantly coloured advertisements of cycles, a
display of bells, trouser-clips, oil-cans, pump-clips,
frame-cases, wallets, and other accessories, and the announcement
of "Bicycles on Hire," "Repairs," "Free inflation," "Petrol,"
and similar attractions. They were agents for several obscure
makes of bicycle,--two samples constituted the stock,--and
occasionally they effected a sale; they also repaired punctures
and did their best--though luck was not always on their side--
with any other repairing that was brought to them. They handled
a line of cheap gramophones, and did a little with musical boxes.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: The statistics indicate at any rate a surprisingly low rate of
intelligence among the classes in which large families and
uncontrolled procreation predominate. Those of the lowest grade in
intelligence are born of unskilled laborers (with the highest birth
rate in the community); the next high among the skilled laborers, and
so on to the families of professional people, among whom it is now
admitted that the birth rate is voluntarily controlled.[3]
But scientific investigations of this type cannot be complete until
statistics are accurately obtained concerning the relation of
unrestrained fecundity and the quality, mental and physical, of the
children produced. The philosophy of Birth Control therefore seeks
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: who think nothing can be dangerous, or difficult,
or fatiguing to anybody but themselves.
The Miss Bertrams were much to be pitied on the occasion:
not for their sorrow, but for their want of it.
Their father was no object of love to them; he had never
seemed the friend of their pleasures, and his absence
was unhappily most welcome. They were relieved by it from
all restraint; and without aiming at one gratification
that would probably have been forbidden by Sir Thomas,
they felt themselves immediately at their own disposal,
and to have every indulgence within their reach.
Mansfield Park |
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 Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: per cents stood at forty-five. He persuaded the Tuileries that this
was done out of devotion, and about the same time he and du Tillet
between them swallowed down three millions belonging to that great
scamp Philippe Bridau.
"Quite lately our Baron was walking along the Rue de Rivoli on his way
to the Bois when he met the Baroness d'Aldrigger under the colonnade.
The little old lady wore a tiny green bonnet with a rose-colored
lining, a flowered gown, and a mantilla; altogether, she was more than
ever the Shepherdess of the Alps. She could no more be made to
understand the causes of her poverty than the sources of her wealth.
As she went along, leaning upon poor Malvina, that model of heroic
|
