| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: eating, La Tonsard was naturally an excellent cook; and though her
talents were only exercised on the common dishes of the country,
jugged hare, game sauce, stewed fish and omelets, she was considered
in all the country round to be an admirable cook of the sort of food
which is eaten at a counter and spiced in a way to excite a desire for
drink. By the end of two years, she had managed to rule Tonsard, and
turn him to evil courses, which, indeed, he asked no better than to
indulge in.
The rascal was continually poaching, and with nothing to fear from it.
The intimacies of his wife with Gaubertin and the keepers and the
rural authorities, together with the laxity of the times, secured him
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: I think not, he said.
But, I said, a temperate state will be a well-ordered state.
Of course, he replied.
Then temperance, I said, will not be doing one's own business; not at least
in this way, or doing things of this sort?
Clearly not.
Then, as I was just now saying, he who declared that temperance is a man
doing his own business had another and a hidden meaning; for I do not think
that he could have been such a fool as to mean this. Was he a fool who
told you, Charmides?
Nay, he replied, I certainly thought him a very wise man.
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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 Silas Marner by George Eliot: if it isn't the blowing of our own noses. That's what I say, and
I've said it many a time; but there's nobody 'ull ventur a ten-pun'
note on their ghos'es as they make so sure of."
"Why, Dowlas, that's easy betting, that is," said Ben Winthrop.
"You might as well bet a man as he wouldn't catch the rheumatise if
he stood up to 's neck in the pool of a frosty night. It 'ud be
fine fun for a man to win his bet as he'd catch the rheumatise.
Folks as believe in Cliff's Holiday aren't agoing to ventur near it
for a matter o' ten pound."
"If Master Dowlas wants to know the truth on it," said Mr. Macey,
with a sarcastic smile, tapping his thumbs together, "he's no call
Silas Marner |
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 Iron Puddler by James J. Davis: peace, she knew how to get it. Such things afford us lessons that
are useful all our lives. This woman had learned by sad
experience that healthy men will quarrel and thump each other;
that these fights put men in the hospital, after breaking her
dishes and splattering her tablecloths with blood. Hating
bloodshed, she prevented it by being ever ready to shed blood
herself. She stood for the moral law, but she stood armed and
ready.
Impractical men have told me that right will always triumph of
itself; it needs no fighters to support it. The man who believes
that is ignorant, and such ignorance is dangerous. Right is
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