| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: compared to that of the sea-god Glaucus, whose original image can hardly be
discerned because his natural members are broken off and crushed and
damaged by the waves in all sorts of ways, and incrustations have grown
over them of seaweed and shells and stones, so that he is more like some
monster than he is to his own natural form. And the soul which we behold
is in a similar condition, disfigured by ten thousand ills. But not there,
Glaucon, not there must we look.
Where then?
At her love of wisdom. Let us see whom she affects, and what society and
converse she seeks in virtue of her near kindred with the immortal and
eternal and divine; also how different she would become if wholly following
The Republic |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie: but some obscure drug no one has ever heard of, which produces
much the same symptoms."
"H'm, yes, that might be," said John. "But look here, how could
he have got at the coco? That wasn't downstairs?"
"No, it wasn't," I admitted reluctantly.
And then, suddenly, a dreadful possibility flashed through my
mind. I hoped and prayed it would not occur to John also. I
glanced sideways at him. He was frowning perplexedly, and I drew
a deep breath of relief, for the terrible thought that had
flashed across my mind was this: that Dr. Bauerstein might have
had an accomplice.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: carpet. But when I did talk to you guardedly of Parisian
civilization, when I told you in the disguise of fiction some of
the actual adventures of my youth, you regarded them as mere
romance and would not see their bearing. When I told you that
history of a lawyer at the galleys branded for forgery, who
committed the crime to give his wife, adored like yours, an income
of thirty thousand francs, and whom his wife denounced that she
might be rid of him and free to love another man, you exclaimed,
and other fools who were supping with us exclaimed against me.
Well, my dear Paul, you were that lawyer, less the galleys.
Your friends here are not sparing you. The sister of the two
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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 An International Episode by Henry James: "For me, there are only two social positions worth speaking of--
that of an American lady and that of the Emperor of Russia."
"And what do you do with the American gentlemen?" asked Lord Lambeth.
"She leaves them in America!" said Percy Beaumont.
On the departure of their visitors, Bessie Alden told her sister that
Lord Lambeth would come the next day, to go with them to the Tower,
and that he had kindly offered to bring his "trap" and drive them thither.
Mrs. Westgate listened in silence to this communication,
and for some time afterward she said nothing. But at last,
"If you had not requested me the other day not to mention it,"
she began, "there is something I should venture to ask you."
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