| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac: But he suddenly lifted his eyes to heaven, and seemed to find a fresh
fount of resignation in some religious thought; then, with a look of
fatherly pity at his daughter, who herself was moved, he took her
hand, pressed it, and said with deep feeling: "God is my witness, poor
mistaken child, I have conscientiously discharged my duty to you as a
father--conscientiously, do I say? Most lovingly, my Emilie. Yes, God
knows! This winter I have brought before you more than one good man,
whose character, whose habits, and whose temper were known to me, and
all seemed worthy of you. My child, my task is done. From this day
forth you are the arbiter of your fate, and I consider myself both
happy and unhappy at finding myself relieved of the heaviest of
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: acknowledge that we have not now to begin classifying actions under the
head of utility; they would not deny that about the general conceptions of
morals there is a practical agreement. There is no more doubt that
falsehood is wrong than that a stone falls to the ground, although the
first does not admit of the same ocular proof as the second. There is no
greater uncertainty about the duty of obedience to parents and to the law
of the land than about the properties of triangles. Unless we are looking
for a new moral world which has no marrying and giving in marriage, there
is no greater disagreement in theory about the right relations of the sexes
than about the composition of water. These and a few other simple
principles, as they have endless applications in practice, so also may be
|
