| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from On Revenues by Xenophon: money-lending. But the converse is the case in the working of silver;
there the larger the quantity of ore discovered and the greater the
amount of silver extracted, the greater the number of persons ready to
engage in the operation. One more illustration: take the case of
movable property. No one when he has got sufficient furniture for his
house dreams of making further purchases on this head, but of silver
no one ever yet possessed so much that he was forced to cry "enough."
On the contrary, if ever anybody does become possessed of an
immoderate amount he finds as much pleasure in digging a hole in the
ground and hoarding it as in the actual employment of it. And from a
wider point of view: when a state is prosperous there is nothing which
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: of her, and could hardly fail to render her one of the most
agreeable companions in existence. Whether they were right or
wrong in this conjecture, certain it is that minds, like bodies,
will often fall into a pimpled ill-conditioned state from mere
excess of comfort, and like them, are often successfully cured by
remedies in themselves very nauseous and unpalatable.
Mrs Varden's chief aider and abettor, and at the same time her
principal victim and object of wrath, was her single domestic
servant, one Miss Miggs; or as she was called, in conformity with
those prejudices of society which lop and top from poor hand-
maidens all such genteel excrescences--Miggs. This Miggs was a
Barnaby Rudge |
