| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Oakdale Affair by Edgar Rice Burroughs: rang, and when he had hung up the receiver after the
conversation the theft seemed a trivial matter. In fact
he had almost forgotten it, for the message had been
from the local telegraph office relaying a wire they had
just received from Mr. Samuel Benham.
"I say, Pudgy," he cried, as he took the steps two at
a time for the second floor, "here's a wire from Benham
saying Gail didn't come on that train and asking when
he's to expect her."
"Impossible!" ejaculated Mrs. Prim. "I certainly saw
her aboard the train myself. Impossible!"
The Oakdale Affair |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: And they alone were there to find what they were looking for.
So they were, and so they are; and as they came are coming others,
And among them are the fearless and the meek and the unborn;
And a question that has held us heretofore without an answer
May abide without an answer until all have ceased to mourn.
For the children of the dark are more to name than are the wretched,
Or the broken, or the weary, or the baffled, or the shamed:
There are builders of new mansions in the Valley of the Shadow,
And among them are the dying and the blinded and the maimed.
The Wandering Jew
I saw by looking in his eyes
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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 Statesman by Plato: the 'Cities will never cease from ill' of the Republic. The point of view
in both is the same; and the differences not really important, e.g. in the
myth, or in the account of the different kinds of states. But the
treatment of the subject in the Statesman is fragmentary, and the shorter
and later work, as might be expected, is less finished, and less worked out
in detail. The idea of measure and the arrangement of the sciences supply
connecting links both with the Republic and the Philebus.
More than any of the preceding dialogues, the Statesman seems to
approximate in thought and language to the Laws. There is the same decline
and tendency to monotony in style, the same self-consciousness,
awkwardness, and over-civility; and in the Laws is contained the pattern of
Statesman |
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 In the Cage by Henry James: formulated his theory of the matter, but the exuberance of the
aristocracy was the advantage of trade, and everything was knit
together in a richness of pattern that it was good to follow with
one's finger-tips. It was a comfort to him to be thus assured that
there were no symptoms of a drop. What did the sounder, as she
called it, nimbly worked, do but keep the ball going?
What it came to therefore for Mr. Mudge was that all enjoyments
were, as might be said, inter-related, and that the more people had
the more they wanted to have. The more flirtations, as he might
roughly express it, the more cheese and pickles. He had even in
his own small way been dimly struck with the linked sweetness
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