| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London: mans I gif you one thousand dollar more.' And I say, 'Oui, queek!
Allons, madame!'
"For sure, I t'ink, das two thousand dollar mine. Bully boy! Den
more mens come from Circle City, and dey say no, das thees mans,
Daveed Payne, come Dawson leel tam back. So madame and I go not
'tall.
"Oui, m'sieu. Thees day madame spik. 'Pierre,' her spik, and gif
me five hundred dollar, 'go buy poling-boat. To-morrow we go up
de river.' Ah, oui, to-morrow, up de river, and das dam Sitka
Charley mak me pay for de poling-boat five hundred dollar. Dam!"
Thus it was, when Jack Coughran unburdened himself next day, that
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: and under and among the groups of leafless oaks and beeches were
blue hepaticas, white anemones, violets, and celandines in sheets.
The celandines in particular delighted me with their clean,
happy brightness, so beautifully trim and newly varnished,
as though they too had had the painters at work on them.
Then, when the anemones went, came a few stray periwinkles and
Solomon's Seal, and all the birdcherries blossomed in a burst.
And then, before I had a little got used to the joy of their
flowers against the sky, came the lilacs--masses and masses
of them, in clumps on the grass, with other shrubs and trees
by the side of walks, and one great continuous bank of them
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: from his daughter. He had given her some hints of it the last spring
in town; he had gone so far even as to say, "Can we retrench?
Does it occur to you that there is any one article in which
we can retrench?" and Elizabeth, to do her justice, had, in the first
ardour of female alarm, set seriously to think what could be done,
and had finally proposed these two branches of economy, to cut off
some unnecessary charities, and to refrain from new furnishing
the drawing-room; to which expedients she afterwards added
the happy thought of their taking no present down to Anne,
as had been the usual yearly custom. But these measures,
however good in themselves, were insufficient for the real extent
Persuasion |
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 Euthydemus by Plato: Here Ctesippus, the lover of Cleinias, interposes in great excitement,
thinking that he will teach the two Sophists a lesson of good manners. But
he is quickly entangled in the meshes of their sophistry; and as a storm
seems to be gathering Socrates pacifies him with a joke, and Ctesippus then
says that he is not reviling the two Sophists, he is only contradicting
them. 'But,' says Dionysodorus, 'there is no such thing as contradiction.
When you and I describe the same thing, or you describe one thing and I
describe another, how can there be a contradiction?' Ctesippus is unable
to reply.
Socrates has already heard of the denial of contradiction, and would like
to be informed by the great master of the art, 'What is the meaning of this
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