| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Octopus by Frank Norris: After an interminable walk, she gained Kearney Street, and held
it till the well-lighted, well-kept neighbourhood of the shopping
district gave place to the vice-crowded saloons and concert halls
of the Barbary Coast. She turned aside in avoidance of this,
only to plunge into the purlieus of Chinatown, whence only she
emerged, panic-stricken and out of breath, after a half hour of
never-to-be-forgotten terrors, and at a time when it had grown
quite dark.
On the corner of California and Dupont streets, she stood a long
moment, pondering.
I MUST do something," she said to herself. "I must do
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: that knowledge is and is not sensation; and of everything we must say
equally, that this is and is not, or becomes or becomes not. And still the
word 'this' is not quite correct, for language fails in the attempt to
express their meaning.
At the close of the discussion, Theodorus claims to be released from the
argument, according to his agreement. But Theaetetus insists that they
shall proceed to consider the doctrine of rest. This is declined by
Socrates, who has too much reverence for the great Parmenides lightly to
attack him. (We shall find that he returns to the doctrine of rest in the
Sophist; but at present he does not wish to be diverted from his main
purpose, which is, to deliver Theaetetus of his conception of knowledge.)
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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 Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: his capacity to speak in good terms of his horses, of his Pyrenean
hound; to tell by her dress, her walk, her shoes, to what class a
woman belonged; to study /ecarte/, remember a few fashionable
catchwords, and win by his sojourn in Parisian society the necessary
authority to import later into his province a taste for tea and silver
of an English fashion, and to obtain the right of despising everything
around him for the rest of his days.
De Marsay had admitted him to his society in order to make use of him
in the world, just as a bold speculator employs a confidential clerk.
The friendship, real or feigned, of De Marsay was a social position
for Paul de Manerville, who, on his side, thought himself astute in
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
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 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: sensibly touch his heart, and bring him to the further knowledge of
that truth in His own time; and if God shall influence this poor
man to convert and instruct the ignorant savage, his wife, I can
never believe that he shall be cast away himself. And have I not
reason, then, to rejoice, the nearer any are brought to the
knowledge of Christ, though they may not be brought quite home into
the bosom of the Catholic Church just at the time when I desire it,
leaving it to the goodness of Christ to perfect His work in His own
time, and in his own way? Certainly, I would rejoice if all the
savages in America were brought, like this poor woman, to pray to
God, though they were all to be Protestants at first, rather than
Robinson Crusoe |
