| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells: idea that the ideal battery was a battery of one big gun, with
its own aeroplane and kite balloon marking for it.
The British seem to be associated with the adventurous self-
reliance needed in the air. The British aeroplanes do not simply
fight the Germans out of the sky; they also make themselves an
abominable nuisance by bombing the enemy trenches. For every
German bomb that is dropped by aeroplane on or behind the British
lines, about twenty go down on the heads of the Germans. British
air bombs upon guns, stores and communications do some of the
work that the French effect by their systematic demolition fire.
And the British aviator has discovered and is rapidly developing
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare: Hath rotted, ere his youth attain'd a beard:
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
And Crowes are fatted with the murrion flocke,
The nine mens Morris is fild vp with mud,
And the queint Mazes in the wanton greene,
For lacke of tread are vndistinguishable.
The humane mortals want their winter heere,
No night is now with hymne or caroll blest;
Therefore the Moone (the gouernesse of floods)
Pale in her anger, washes all the aire;
That Rheumaticke diseases doe abound.
A Midsummer Night's Dream |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: fall very far short of the original. The breath of conversation, the
subtle adjustment of question and answer, the lively play of fancy, the
power of drawing characters, are wanting in them. But the Platonic
dialogue is a drama as well as a dialogue, of which Socrates is the central
figure, and there are lesser performers as well:--the insolence of
Thrasymachus, the anger of Callicles and Anytus, the patronizing style of
Protagoras, the self-consciousness of Prodicus and Hippias, are all part of
the entertainment. To reproduce this living image the same sort of effort
is required as in translating poetry. The language, too, is of a finer
quality; the mere prose English is slow in lending itself to the form of
question and answer, and so the ease of conversation is lost, and at the
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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 Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: children to see everything, because it isn't likely they'll ever
see another wreck like that. Rows of - "
"About twelve o'clock," I broke in, "and what then?"
"The young man up-stairs was awake," she went on, "and hammering at
his door like all possessed. And it was locked on the outside!"
She paused to enjoy her sensation.
"I would like to see that lock," Hotchkiss said promptly, but for
some reason the woman demurred.
"I will bring the key down," she said and disappeared. When she
returned she held out an ordinary door key of the cheapest variety.
"We had to break the lock," she volunteered, "and the key didn't
The Man in Lower Ten |
