| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle: course I must use the official police as well. Would you give me
an introduction to him?"
"I'll do better. I'll take you round to him myself."
"I should be immensely obliged to you."
"We'll call a cab and go together. We shall just be in time to
have a little breakfast with him. Do you feel equal to it?"
"Yes; I shall not feel easy until I have told my story."
"Then my servant will call a cab, and I shall be with you in an
instant." I rushed upstairs, explained the matter shortly to my
wife, and in five minutes was inside a hansom, driving with my
new acquaintance to Baker Street.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: hopeful, there were times when he was greatly depressed. His
friend William Butler relates how, as they were riding together
on horseback from Vandalia to Springfield at the close of a
session of the legislature, Lincoln, in one of these gloomy
moods, told him of the almost hopeless prospect that lay
immediately before him. The session was over, his salary was all
drawn, the money all spent; he had no work, and did not know
where to turn to earn even a week's board. Butler bade him be of
good cheer, and, kind practical friend that he was, took him and
his belongings to his own home, keeping him there for a time as
his guest. His most intimate friend of those days, Joshua F.
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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 Ion by Plato: admit that there are differences of arts?
ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: You would argue, as I should, that when one art is of one kind
of knowledge and another of another, they are different?
ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: Yes, surely; for if the subject of knowledge were the same,
there would be no meaning in saying that the arts were different,--if they
both gave the same knowledge. For example, I know that here are five
fingers, and you know the same. And if I were to ask whether I and you
became acquainted with this fact by the help of the same art of arithmetic,
you would acknowledge that we did?
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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 Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: dogs, cats, canaries; and as to Mrs. Smith's grey
parrot, its peculiarities exercised upon her a posi-
tive fascination. Nevertheless, when that outland-
ish bird, attacked by the cat, shrieked for help in
human accents, she ran out into the yard stopping
her ears, and did not prevent the crime. For Mrs.
Smith this was another evidence of her stupidity;
on the other hand, her want of charm, in view of
Smith's well-known frivolousness, was a great rec-
commendation. Her short-sighted eyes would swim
with pity for a poor mouse in a trap, and she had
Amy Foster |
