| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: I made sure that before I should have done with him there would
scarcely be a current form of words left me to be sick of; but
meanwhile I could make surer still of my animosity to bustling
ladies for whom he drew the water that irrigated their social
flower-beds.
I had a battle with Mrs. Wimbush over the artist she protected, and
another over the question of a certain week, at the end of July,
that Mr. Paraday appeared to have contracted to spend with her in
the country. I protested against this visit; I intimated that he
was too unwell for hospitality without a nuance, for caresses
without imagination; I begged he might rather take the time in some
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: father were carried in a billy-boat from Sheerness in December,
1816: Charles with an outfit suitable to his pretensions, a
twenty-guinea sextant and 120 dollars in silver, which were ordered
into the care of the gunner. 'The old clerks and mates,' he
writes, 'used to laugh and jeer me for joining the ship in a billy-
boat, and when they found I was from Kent, vowed I was an old
Kentish smuggler. This to my pride, you will believe, was not a
little offensive.'
THE CONQUEROR carried the flag of Vice-Admiral Plampin, commanding
at the Cape and St. Helena; and at that all-important islet, in
July, 1817, she relieved the flagship of Sir Pulteney Malcolm.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from King James Bible: JOS 9:24 And they answered Joshua, and said, Because it was certainly
told thy servants, how that the LORD thy God commanded his servant Moses
to give you all the land, and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land
from before you, therefore we were sore afraid of our lives because of
you, and have done this thing.
JOS 9:25 And now, behold, we are in thine hand: as it seemeth good and
right unto thee to do unto us, do.
JOS 9:26 And so did he unto them, and delivered them out of the hand of
the children of Israel, that they slew them not.
JOS 9:27 And Joshua made them that day hewers of wood and drawers of
water for the congregation, and for the altar of the LORD, even unto
King James Bible |
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: ANYTUS: Why do you not tell him yourself?
SOCRATES: I have told him whom I supposed to be the teachers of these
things; but I learn from you that I am utterly at fault, and I dare say
that you are right. And now I wish that you, on your part, would tell me
to whom among the Athenians he should go. Whom would you name?
ANYTUS: Why single out individuals? Any Athenian gentleman, taken at
random, if he will mind him, will do far more good to him than the
Sophists.
SOCRATES: And did those gentlemen grow of themselves; and without having
been taught by any one, were they nevertheless able to teach others that
which they had never learned themselves?
|
