| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: thousand? Just think how rich you'd be! Why, you might be a King,
if you liked!"
"I don't know as I'd care about being a King," the man said
thoughtfully. "But it; dew sound a powerful sight o' money!
Well, I think I'll wait--"
"Of course you will!" said the Professor. "There's good sense in you,
I see. Good-day to you, my man!"
"Will you ever have to pay him that four thousand pounds?" Sylvie asked
as the door closed on the departing creditor.
"Never, my child!" the Professor replied emphatically. "He'll go on
doubling it, till he dies. You see it's always worth while waiting
Sylvie and Bruno |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: Latin or Greek. In the two latter, especially in Greek, sentences are
joined together by connecting particles. They are distributed on the right
hand and on the left by men, de, alla, kaitoi, kai de and the like, or
deduced from one another by ara, de, oun, toinun and the like. In English
the majority of sentences are independent and in apposition to one another;
they are laid side by side or slightly connected by the copula. But within
the sentence the expression of the logical relations of the clauses is
closer and more exact: there is less of apposition and participial
structure. The sentences thus laid side by side are also constructed into
paragraphs; these again are less distinctly marked in Greek and Latin than
in English. Generally French, German, and English have an advantage over
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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 The Lesson of the Master by Henry James: impression for the first time.
"Ah you've not been here before?" said his companion. "It's a nice
little place - not much to DO, you know". Overt wondered what he
wanted to "do" - he felt that he himself was doing so much. By the
time they came to where the others sat he had recognised his
initiator for a military man and - such was the turn of Overt's
imagination - had found him thus still more sympathetic. He would
naturally have a need for action, for deeds at variance with the
pacific pastoral scene. He was evidently so good-natured, however,
that he accepted the inglorious hour for what it was worth. Paul
Overt shared it with him and with his companions for the next
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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 Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: to be the bed of this mighty river, which, like a god of
antiquity, dispenses both good and evil in its course. On the
shores of the stream nature displays an inexhaustible fertility;
in proportion as you recede from its banks, the powers of
vegetation languish, the soil becomes poor, and the plants that
survive have a sickly growth. Nowhere have the great convulsions
of the globe left more evident traces than in the valley of the
Mississippi; the whole aspect of the country shows the powerful
effects of water, both by its fertility and by its barrenness.
The waters of the primeval ocean accumulated enormous beds of
vegetable mould in the valley, which they levelled as they
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