| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: that it plainly and indubitably proved the fallacy of all the plans
for cutting off the enemy's retreat and the soundness of the only
possible line of action- the one Kutuzov and the general mass of the
army demanded- namely, simply to follow the enemy up. The French crowd
fled at a continually increasing speed and all its energy was directed
to reaching its goal. It fled like a wounded animal and it was
impossible to block its path. This was shown not so much by the
arrangements it made for crossing as by what took place at the
bridges. When the bridges broke down, unarmed soldiers, people from
Moscow and women with children who were with the French transport,
all- carried on by vis inertiae- pressed forward into boats and into
War and Peace |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: illumination.
Up the street came galloping a closed carriage, bursting
abruptly into noise at the corner, rising to a clattering climax
under the window, and dying away slowly in the distance.
Close on the rear of this came a couple of cabs, the forerun-
ners of a long procession of flying vehicles, going for the most
part to Chalk Farm station, where the North-Western special
trains were loading up, instead of coming down the gradient
into Euston.
For a long time my brother stared out of the window in
blank astonishment, watching the policemen hammering at
War of the Worlds |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: reaches a conclusion, all conspired to blind him. He found the
umbrella-man in full dress, and they were about to start, when
Virginie, the cook, caught him by the arm:--
"Monsieur, madame does not wish you to go out--"
"Pshaw!" said Birotteau, "more women's notions!"
"--without your coffee, which is ready."
"That's true. My neighbor," he said to Cayron, "I have so many things
in my head that I can't think of my stomach. Do me the kindness to go
forward; we will meet at Monsieur Molineux' door, unless you are
willing to go up and explain matters to him, which would save time."
Monsieur Molineux was a grotesque little man, living on his rents,--a
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
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 Meno by Plato: though not extinguished, by the combined energies of the passionate and
rational elements. This is one of those passages in Plato which, partaking
both of a philosophical and poetical character, is necessarily indistinct
and inconsistent. The magnificent figure under which the nature of the
soul is described has not much to do with the popular doctrine of the
ideas. Yet there is one little trait in the description which shows that
they are present to Plato's mind, namely, the remark that the soul, which
had seen truths in the form of the universal, cannot again return to the
nature of an animal.
In the Phaedo, as in the Meno, the origin of ideas is sought for in a
previous state of existence. There was no time when they could have been
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