| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: described quite differently from your version in a book I have;
what are your rules? The Port Admiral is using a game of put in a
tale of his, the first copy of which was gloriously finished about
a fortnight ago, and the revise gallantly begun: THE FINSBURY
TONTINE it is named, and might fill two volumes, and is quite
incredibly silly, and in parts (it seems to me) pretty humorous. -
Love to all from
AN OLD, OLD MAN.
I say, Taine's ORIGINES DE LA FRANCE CONTEMPORAINE is no end; it
would turn the dead body of Charles Fox into a living Tory.
Letter: TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN
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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 Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: are ruined in the usual way.
And if it be urged that whoever is armed will act in the same way,
whether mercenary or not, I reply that when arms have to be resorted
to, either by a prince or a republic, then the prince ought to go in
person and perform the duty of a captain; the republic has to send its
citizens, and when one is sent who does not turn out satisfactorily,
it ought to recall him, and when one is worthy, to hold him by the
laws so that he does not leave the command. And experience has shown
princes and republics, single-handed, making the greatest progress,
and mercenaries doing nothing except damage; and it is more difficult
to bring a republic, armed with its own arms, under the sway of one of
The Prince |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James: preceptor - he wasn't smart enough; though he might pass for his
companion's sickly little brother. Now and then he had a five-
franc piece, and except once, when they bought a couple of lovely
neckties, one of which he made Pemberton accept, they laid it out
scientifically in old books. This was sure to be a great day,
always spent on the quays, in a rummage of the dusty boxes that
garnish the parapets. Such occasions helped them to live, for
their books ran low very soon after the beginning of their
acquaintance. Pemberton had a good many in England, but he was
obliged to write to a friend and ask him kindly to get some fellow
to give him something for them.
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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 Menexenus by Plato: in an undoubted dialogue of Plato. On the other hand, the upholders of the
genuineness of the dialogue will find in the Hippias a true Socratic
spirit; they will compare the Ion as being akin both in subject and
treatment; they will urge the authority of Aristotle; and they will detect
in the treatment of the Sophist, in the satirical reasoning upon Homer, in
the reductio ad absurdum of the doctrine that vice is ignorance, traces of
a Platonic authorship. In reference to the last point we are doubtful, as
in some of the other dialogues, whether the author is asserting or
overthrowing the paradox of Socrates, or merely following the argument
'whither the wind blows.' That no conclusion is arrived at is also in
accordance with the character of the earlier dialogues. The resemblances
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