| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: Yes, I said, I know many things, but not anything of much importance.
That will do, he said: And would you admit that anything is what it is,
and at the same time is not what it is?
Certainly not.
And did you not say that you knew something?
I did.
If you know, you are knowing.
Certainly, of the knowledge which I have.
That makes no difference;--and must you not, if you are knowing, know all
things?
Certainly not, I said, for there are many other things which I do not know.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An International Episode by Henry James: thought her prettier, and, certainly, she was not so sharp.
She was more in the Boston style; she had lived a great deal
in Boston, and she was very highly educated. Boston girls,
it was propounded, were more like English young ladies.
Lord Lambeth had presently a chance to test the truth of this proposition,
for on the company rising in compliance with a suggestion from their
hostess that they should walk down to the rocks and look at the sea,
the young Englishman again found himself, as they strolled across the grass,
in proximity to Mrs. Westgate's sister. Though she was but a girl of twenty,
she appeared to feel the obligation to exert an active hospitality; and this
was, perhaps, the more to be noticed as she seemed by nature a reserved
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Last War: A World Set Free by H. G. Wells: regular employment at last; 'they like me,' he said, 'and I like
the job. If I work up--in'r dozen years or so I ought to be
gettin' somethin' pretty comfortable. That's the plain sense of
it, Hetty. There ain't no reason whatsoever why we shouldn't get
along very decently--very decently indeed.'
The desire for little successes amidst conditions securely fixed!
So it struck upon Holsten's mind. He added in his diary, 'I had
a sense of all this globe as that....'
By that phrase he meant a kind of clairvoyant vision of this
populated world as a whole, of all its cities and towns and
villages, its high roads and the inns beside them, its gardens
The Last War: A World Set Free |
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 Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: The Marquise de Listomere danced, about a month ago, with a young man
as modest as he is lively, full of good qualities, but exhibiting,
chiefly, his defects. He is ardent, but he laughs at ardor; he has
talent, and he hides it; he plays the learned man with aristocrats,
and the aristocrat with learned men. Eugene de Rastignac is one of
those extremely clever young men who try all things, and seem to sound
others to discover what the future has in store. While awaiting the
age of ambition, he scoffs at everything; he has grace and
originality, two rare qualities because the one is apt to exclude the
other. On this occasion he talked for nearly half an hour with madame
de Listomere, without any predetermined idea of pleasing her. As they
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