| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: may vary from the least degree of diversity up to contradictory opposition.
They are not like numbers and figures, always and everywhere of the same
value. And therefore the edifice which is constructed out of them has
merely an imaginary symmetry, and is really irregular and out of
proportion. The spirit of Hegelian criticism should be applied to his own
system, and the terms Being, Not-being, existence, essence, notion, and the
like challenged and defined. For if Hegel introduces a great many
distinctions, he obliterates a great many others by the help of the
universal solvent 'is not,' which appears to be the simplest of negations,
and yet admits of several meanings. Neither are we able to follow him in
the play of metaphysical fancy which conducts him from one determination of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Off on a Comet by Jules Verne: and to the liberal friend who had given him his education.
He had an excellent crew, consisting of Tiglew the engineer,
four sailors named Niegoch, Tolstoy, Etkef, and Panofka,
and Mochel the cook. These men, without exception, were all sons
of the count's tenants, and so tenaciously, even out at sea,
did they cling to their old traditions, that it mattered little
to them what physical disorganization ensued, so long as they
felt they were sharing the experiences of their lord and master.
The late astounding events, however, had rendered Procope
manifestly uneasy, and not the less so from his consciousness
that the count secretly partook of his own anxiety.
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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 Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: "What did your friend do with your advice?"
And I replied. "He has taken it."
"Perhaps not that," John returned, "but you must have helped him to see
his way."
When the bride came to cut the cake, she called me to her and fulfilled
her promise.
"You have always liked my baking," she said.
"Then you made it after all," I answered.
"I would not have been married without doing so," she declared sweetly.
When the time came for them to go away, they were surrounded with
affectionate God-speeds; but Miss Josephine St. Michael waited to be 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 Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: And pluck the bursting canvas from the yard,
And senseless clamour of the calm, at night
Must mar your slumbers. By the plunging light,
In beetle-haunted, most unwomanly bower
Of the wild-swerving cabin, hour by hour . . .
Schooner 'Equator.'
XXXIV - TO MY OLD FAMILIARS
DO you remember - can we e'er forget? -
How, in the coiled-perplexities of youth,
In our wild climate, in our scowling town,
We gloomed and shivered, sorrowed, sobbed and feared?
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