| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young: She had not for long played with those many little girls in all
sorts of clothes, and with larger girls, and with boys,--some with
short-striped-stocking-legs and some with long-striped-stocking-
legs,--before she heard one child say: ``Mama says she will take me
to Sweet Fern Cave to-morrow.''
Or perhaps it was another child who said: ``Mama won't let me wade
in the branch.''
Or another child said: ``Mama says I can have a party for all the
little girls and boys on the mountain next Friday!''
Then another little child said: ``My Mama has made me a beautiful
pink dress, and I will wear that to your party.''
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: "I will just say a word--you, Elizabeth-Jane, can stay
here."
The girl was not loth, and turned to some stalls of coloured
prints while her mother went forward. The old woman begged
for the latter's custom as soon as she saw her, and
responded to Mrs. Henchard-Newson's request for a penny-
worth with more alacrity than she had shown in selling six-
pennyworths in her younger days. When the soi-disant
widow had taken the basin of thin poor slop that stood for
the rich concoction of the former time, the hag opened a
little basket behind the fire, and looking up slily,
The Mayor of Casterbridge |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: opinions, theories, and doctrines. This, I believe, is the only
mode of arriving at the discovery of some few particles of truth,
especially when dealing, as is the case here, with a question
that is the subject of impassioned controversy. A man of science
bent on verifying a phenomenon is not called upon to concern
himself with the interests his verifications may hurt. In a
recent publication an eminent thinker, M. Goblet d'Alviela, made
the remark that, belonging to none of the contemporary schools, I
am occasionally found in opposition of sundry of the conclusions
of all of them. I hope this new work will merit a similar
observation. To belong to a school is necessarily to espouse its
|
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 Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: sciences I thought I knew the worth sufficiently to escape being deceived
by the professions of an alchemist, the predictions of an astrologer, the
impostures of a magician, or by the artifices and boasting of any of those
who profess to know things of which they are ignorant.
For these reasons, as soon as my age permitted me to pass from under the
control of my instructors, I entirely abandoned the study of letters, and
resolved no longer to seek any other science than the knowledge of myself,
or of the great book of the world. I spent the remainder of my youth in
traveling, in visiting courts and armies, in holding intercourse with men
of different dispositions and ranks, in collecting varied experience, in
proving myself in the different situations into which fortune threw me,
Reason Discourse |
