| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: virtue?
MENO: True.
SOCRATES: Then the acquisition of such goods is no more virtue than the
non-acquisition and want of them, but whatever is accompanied by justice or
honesty is virtue, and whatever is devoid of justice is vice.
MENO: It cannot be otherwise, in my judgment.
SOCRATES: And were we not saying just now that justice, temperance, and
the like, were each of them a part of virtue?
MENO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And so, Meno, this is the way in which you mock me.
MENO: Why do you say that, Socrates?
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: Esperanto of the nations, the universal language understood from
Broadway to Brazil. The hand on her shoulder relaxed and fell
away.
On deck once more, she encountered the suave Senor Pages. He
stood at the rail surveying Rio's shores with that lip-curling
contempt of the Argentine for everything Brazilian. He regarded
Emma McChesney's radiant face.
"You are pleased with this--this Indian Rio?"
Mrs. McChesney paused to gaze with him at the receding shores.
"Like it! I'm afraid I haven't seen it. From here it looks
like Coney. But it buys like Seattle. Like it! Well, I should
Emma McChesney & Co. |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: Blisters on the hands are eloquent of the nervous clutch of the
wavering rider. And so forth, until Sherlock is presently
explaining, by the help of the minor injuries, that the machine
ridden is an old-fashioned affair with a fork instead of the
diamond frame, a cushioned tire, well worn on the hind wheel, and
a gross weight all on of perhaps three-and-forty pounds.
The revelation is made. Behind the decorous figure of the
attentive shopman that I had the honour of showing you at first,
rises a vision of a nightly struggle, of two dark figures and a
machine in a dark road,--the road, to be explicit, from
Roehampton to Putney Hill,--and with this vision is the sound of
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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 The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: necessity of a sunshade--the advantage of having a great lady to
complain of, instead of chewing the stems of roses bought for
fivepence apiece of Mme. Prevost, after the manner of the callow
youngsters that chirp and cackle in the lobbies of the Opera, like
chickens in a coop. In short, he resolved to centre his ideas, his
sentiments, his affections upon a woman, ONE WOMAN?--LA PHAMME!
Ah! . . . .
"At first he conceived the preposterous notion of an unhappy passion,
and gyrated for a while about his fair cousin, Mme. d'Aiglemont, not
perceiving that she had already danced the waltz in Faust with a
diplomatist. The year '25 went by, spent in tentatives, in futile
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