| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: to live with us (Em's cousin, I mean), as she has not anything in the world
but a poor fifty pounds. I don't like her at all, Jemima, and I don't
think you would. She's got such queer ways; she's always driving about in
a gig with that low German; and I don't think it's at all the thing for a
woman to be going about with a man she's not engaged to. Do you? If it
was me now, of course, who am a kind of connection, it would be different.
The way she treats me, considering that I am so soon to be her cousin, is
not at all nice. I took down my album the other day with your likenesses
in it, and I told her she could look at it, and put it down close to her;
but she just said, Thank you, and never even touched it, as much as to say-
-What are your relations to me?
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: after the Babbitts' dinner. Zenith ardently received Sir Gerald (who had come
to America to buy coal). The newspapers interviewed him on prohibition,
Ireland, unemployment, naval aviation, the rate of exchange, tea-drinking
versus whisky-drinking, the psychology of American women, and daily life as
lived by English county families. Sir Gerald seemed to have heard of all those
topics. The McKelveys gave him a Singhalese dinner, and Miss Elnora Pearl
Bates, society editor of the Advocate-Times, rose to her highest lark-note.
Babbitt read aloud at breakfast-table:
'Twixt the original and Oriental decorations, the strange and delicious food,
and the personalities both of the distinguished guests, the charming hostess
and the noted host, never has Zenith seen a more recherche affair than the
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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 Camille by Alexandre Dumas: over my toilet, and I looked at my watch and my clock a hundred
times, which unfortunately both pointed to the same hour.
When it struck half past ten, I said to myself that it was time
to go.
I lived at that time in the Rue de Provence; I followed the Rue
du Mont-Blanc, crossed the Boulevard, went up the Rue
Louis-le-Grand, the Rue de Port-Mahon, and the Rue d'Antin. I
looked up at Marguerite's windows. There was a light. I rang. I
asked the porter if Mlle. Gautier was at home. He replied that
she never came in before eleven or a quarter past eleven. I
looked at my watch. I intended to come quite slowly, and I had
Camille |
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 Ion by Plato: are restricted to a single theme, or, like Tynnichus, are famous for a
single poem; and the rhapsode is the inspired interpreter of the poet, and
for a similar reason some rhapsodes, like Ion, are the interpreters of
single poets.
Ion is delighted at the notion of being inspired, and acknowledges that he
is beside himself when he is performing;--his eyes rain tears and his hair
stands on end. Socrates is of opinion that a man must be mad who behaves
in this way at a festival when he is surrounded by his friends and there is
nothing to trouble him. Ion is confident that Socrates would never think
him mad if he could only hear his embellishments of Homer. Socrates asks
whether he can speak well about everything in Homer. 'Yes, indeed he can.'
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