| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: accrued interest, amounting to about forty-two thousand francs. His
other creditors, prosperous, rich, and intelligent merchants, had
easily born their losses, whereas the misfortunes of the Lorrains
seemed so irremediable to old Monsieur Collinet that he promised the
widow to pay off her husband's debts, to the amount of forty thousand
francs more. When the Bourse of Nantes heard of this generous
reparation they wished to receive Collinet to their board before his
certificates were granted by the Royal court at Rennes; but the
merchant refused the honor, preferring to submit to the ordinary
commercial rule.
Madame Lorrain had received the money only the day before the post
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: hole. A little brown rabbit skipped around a bunch of catclaw and sat
twitching his whiskers and looking humorously at Givens. The pony went
on eating grass.
It is well to be reasonably watchful when a Mexican lion sings soprano
along the arroyos at sundown. The burden of his song may be that young
calves and fat lambs are scarce, and that he has a carnivorous desire
for your acquaintance.
In the grass lay an empty fruit can, cast there by some former
sojourner. Givens caught sight of it with a grunt of satisfaction. In
his coat pocket tied behind his saddle was a handful or two of ground
coffee. Black coffee and cigarettes! What ranchero could desire more?
Heart of the West |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: unencumbered people and sterile people and people who have married
for passionless purposes, people whose very deficiency in feeling
has left them free to follow ambition, people beautyblind, who don't
understand what it is to fall in love, what it is to desire children
or have them, what it is to feel in their blood and bodies the
supreme claim of good births and selective births above all other
affairs in life, people almost of necessity averse from this most
fundamental aspect of existence. . . .
5
It wasn't, however, my deepening sympathy with and understanding of
the position of women in general, or the change in my ideas about
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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 A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: prey) he feels free. He will tell you himself that the true sportsman
is never a snob, a coward, a duffer, a cheat, a thief, or a liar.
Curious, is it not, that he has not the same confidence in other sorts
of man?
And even sport is losing its freedom. Soon everybody will be
schooled, mentally and physically, from the cradle to the end of the
term of adult compulsory military service, and finally of compulsory
civil service lasting until the age of superannuation. Always more
schooling, more compulsion. We are to be cured by an excess of the
dose that has poisoned us. Satan is to cast out Satan.
Under the Whip
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