| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: in days when nothing astonishes me" [flings his cloak about him like
Talma, and declaims]:--
"Thou who has seen the fall of grand, illustrious heads,
Why thus amazed, insensate that thou art,
"to find a man like Rabourdin employing such means? Baudoyer is too
much of a fool to know how to use them. Accept my congratulations,
gentlemen; either way you are under a most illustrious chief" [goes
off].
Poiret. "I shall leave this ministry without ever comprehending a
single word that gentleman utters. What does he mean with his 'heads
that fall'?"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: still thought the piece of cake worth the risk of putting his hand
out for it.
"Oh, for shame, Aaron," said his mother, taking him on her lap,
however; "why, you don't want cake again yet awhile. He's
wonderful hearty," she went on, with a little sigh--"that he is,
God knows. He's my youngest, and we spoil him sadly, for either me
or the father must allays hev him in our sight--that we must."
She stroked Aaron's brown head, and thought it must do Master Marner
good to see such a "pictur of a child". But Marner, on the other
side of the hearth, saw the neat-featured rosy face as a mere dim
round, with two dark spots in it.
Silas Marner |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: has come early in order to gain his consent to a plan of escape. This can
be easily accomplished by his friends, who will incur no danger in making
the attempt to save him, but will be disgraced for ever if they allow him
to perish. He should think of his duty to his children, and not play into
the hands of his enemies. Money is already provided by Crito as well as by
Simmias and others, and he will have no difficulty in finding friends in
Thessaly and other places.
Socrates is afraid that Crito is but pressing upon him the opinions of the
many: whereas, all his life long he has followed the dictates of reason
only and the opinion of the one wise or skilled man. There was a time when
Crito himself had allowed the propriety of this. And although some one
|
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 Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: This signal insult was destined to bear poisonous
fruit. Luis Cervantes determined to play turncoat; in-
deed, mentally, he had already changed sides. Did not
the sufferings of the underdogs, of the disinherited
masses, move him to the core? Henceforth he espoused
the cause of Demos, of the subjugated, the beaten and
baffled, who implore justice, and justice alone. He be-
came intimate with the humblest private. More, even, he
shed tears of compassion over a dead mule which fell,
load and all, after a terribly long journey.
From then on, Luis Cervantes' prestige with the sol-
The Underdogs |
