| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: know," she added with a laugh, "she really MUST!" - a proposition
of which, on behalf of every one concerned, I fully acknowledged
the force.
CHAPTER VIII.
NOTHING more vexatious had ever happened to me than to become aware
before Corvick's arrival in England that I shouldn't be there to
put him through. I found myself abruptly called to Germany by the
alarming illness of my younger brother, who, against my advice, had
gone to Munich to study, at the feet indeed of a great master, the
art of portraiture in oils. The near relative who made him an
allowance had threatened to withdraw it if he should, under
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mansion by Henry van Dyke: his appointed mansion.
So they came to the summit of the moorland and looked over into
the world beyond. It was a vast, green plain, softly rounded
like
a shallow vase, and circled with hills of amethyst. A broad,
shining river flowed through it, and many silver threads of water
were woven across the green; and there were borders of tall trees
on the banks of the river, and orchards full of roses abloom
along
the little streams, and in the midst of all stood the city,
white and wonderful and radiant.
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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 Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling: Even Belphoebe's, whom they gave their lives for!
Gloriana
Willow Shaw, the little fenced wood where the hop-poles are
stacked like Indian wigwams, had been given to Dan and Una for
their very own kingdom when they were quite small. As they
grew older, they contrived to keep it most particularly private.
Even Phillips, the gardener, told them every time that he came in
to take a hop-pole for his beans, and old Hobden would no more
have thought of setting his rabbit-wires there without leave,
given fresh each spring, than he would have torn down the calico
and marking ink notice on the big willow which said: 'Grown-
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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 Lesser Hippias by Plato: strigils; his girdle, which he has woven himself, is of a finer than
Persian quality. He is a vainer, lighter nature than the two great
Sophists (compare Protag.), but of the same character with them, and
equally impatient of the short cut-and-thrust method of Socrates, whom he
endeavours to draw into a long oration. At last, he gets tired of being
defeated at every point by Socrates, and is with difficulty induced to
proceed (compare Thrasymachus, Protagoras, Callicles, and others, to whom
the same reluctance is ascribed).
Hippias like Protagoras has common sense on his side, when he argues,
citing passages of the Iliad in support of his view, that Homer intended
Achilles to be the bravest, Odysseus the wisest of the Greeks. But he is
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