| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen: conceivable that the facts may be explained in a straightforward
manner. As to your own sensations, when you went to see the
house, I would suggest that they were due to a vivid
imagination; you must have been brooding, in a semi-conscious
way, over what you had heard. I don't exactly see what more can
be said or done in the matter; you evidently think there is a
mystery of some kind, but Herbert is dead; where then do you
propose to look?"
"I propose to look for the woman; the woman whom he
married. She is the mystery."
The two men sat silent by the fireside; Clarke secretly
The Great God Pan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: it must be a liking to the cause, which made him enter warmly
into her father and sister's solicitudes on a subject which
she thought unworthy to excite them. The Bath paper one morning
announced the arrival of the Dowager Viscountess Dalrymple,
and her daughter, the Honourable Miss Carteret; and all the comfort
of No.--, Camden Place, was swept away for many days; for the Dalrymples
(in Anne's opinion, most unfortunately) were cousins of the Elliots;
and the agony was how to introduce themselves properly.
Anne had never seen her father and sister before in contact with nobility,
and she must acknowledge herself disappointed. She had hoped
better things from their high ideas of their own situation in life,
Persuasion |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: and has no shadow of wantonness or lust. The second is the coarser kind of
love, which is a love of the body rather than of the soul, and is of women
and boys as well as of men. Now the actions of lovers vary, like every
other sort of action, according to the manner of their performance. And in
different countries there is a difference of opinion about male loves.
Some, like the Boeotians, approve of them; others, like the Ionians, and
most of the barbarians, disapprove of them; partly because they are aware
of the political dangers which ensue from them, as may be seen in the
instance of Harmodius and Aristogeiton. At Athens and Sparta there is an
apparent contradiction about them. For at times they are encouraged, and
then the lover is allowed to play all sorts of fantastic tricks; he may
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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 On Revenues by Xenophon: others, Athenians and foreigners alike, who, though unwilling and
indeed incapable of working physically in the mines, will be glad
enough to earn a livelihood by their wits as superintendents.[25]
[22] Or, "with this influx (multiplying) of labourers there will be a
corresponding increase in the demand for labour on the part of the
lessees."
[23] Or, "got their mining establishments started."
[24] Or, "of course they will, considering the amount of fixed capital
at stake," or, "since they have large resources at their back." I
have adopted Zurborg's stopping of this sentence.
[25] See "Mem." II. viii. 1, for an illustrative case.
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