| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: collapse. Then you descry dimly through the dusk the central
figure of this story sitting by the roadside and rubbing his leg
at some new place, and his friend, sympathetic (but by no means
depressed), repairing the displacement of the handle-bar.
Thus even in a shop assistant does the warmth of manhood assert
itself, and drive him against all the conditions of his calling,
against the counsels of prudence and the restrictions of his
means, to seek the wholesome delights of exertion and danger and
pain. And our first examination of the draper reveals beneath his
draperies--the man! To which initial fact (among others) we shall
come again in the end.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: and inquired who it was that had fallen, and then had pitied himself,
was, said the Professor, as original and perfect an illustration of our
subjective-objectivity as he had met with in all his researches. And
Billy's suggestions concerning the inherency of time and space in the
mind the Professor had also found very striking and independent,
particularly his reasoning based upon the well-known distortions of time
and space which hashish and other drugs produce in us. This was the
sort of thing which the Professor had wanted from his students: free
comment and discussions, the spirit of the course, rather than any
strict adherence to the letter. He had constructed his questions to
elicit as much individual discussion as possible and had been somewhat
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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 Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: money"--happy, in short, to tell the king, "I have the fortune
which you require in your peers." Thus Modeste Mignon can be of
service to you, and her gold will have the noblest of uses.
As to your servant herself,--you did see her once, at her window.
Yes, "the fairest daughter of Eve the fair" was indeed your
unknown damozel; but how little the Modeste of to-day resembles
her of that long past era! That one was in her shroud, this one--
have I made you know it?--has received from you the life of life.
Love, pure, and sanctioned, the love my father, now returning
rich and prosperous, will authorize, has raised me with its
powerful yet childlike hand from the grave in which I slept. You
Modeste Mignon |
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 In Darkest England and The Way Out by General William Booth: but the world is wide enough yet for another six thousand years.
England's sure markets will be among new colonies of Englishmen in all
quarters of the Globe. All men trade with all men when mutually
convenient, and are even bound to do it by the Maker of Men.
Our friends of China, who guiltily refused to trade in these
circumstances--had we not to argue with them, in cannon-shot at last,
and convince them that they ought to trade? 'Hostile tariffs' will
arise to shut us out, and then, again, will fall, to let us in;
but the sons of England--speakers of the English language, were it
nothing more--will in all times have the ineradicable predisposition to
trade with England. Mycale was the Pan-Ionian--rendezvous of all the
In Darkest England and The Way Out |
