| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: "Ford," he murmured from the floor, "I cannot forget."
"Can't you?" said Ford, innocently, with an attempt at joviality:
"I wish I was like you. I am losing my memory--age, I suppose;
only the other day my mate--"
He stopped, for Almayer had got up, stumbled, and steadied
himself on his friend's arm.
"Hallo! You are better to-day. Soon be all right," said Ford,
cheerfully, but feeling rather scared.
Almayer let go his arm and stood very straight with his head up
and shoulders thrown back, looking stonily at the multitude of
suns shining in ripples of the river. His jacket and his loose
Almayer's Folly |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Mother by Owen Wister: I do say that there is nothing in it to hurt the trust you have placed in
me since I have been your husband. Only," he added, "I hope that I shall
not have to tell any story at all."
"Oh, yes you will!" we all exclaimed together; and the men looked eager
while the women sighed.
The rest of us were much older than Richard, we were middle-aged, in
fact; and human nature is so constructed, that when it is at the age when
making love keeps it busy, it does not care so much to listen to tales of
others' love-making; but the more it recedes from that period of
exuberance, and ceases to have love adventures of its own, the greater
become its hunger and thirst to hear about this delicious business which
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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 Meno by Plato: There are no external criteria by which we can determine the date of the
Meno. There is no reason to suppose that any of the Dialogues of Plato
were written before the death of Socrates; the Meno, which appears to be
one of the earliest of them, is proved to have been of a later date by the
allusion of Anytus.
We cannot argue that Plato was more likely to have written, as he has done,
of Meno before than after his miserable death; for we have already seen, in
the examples of Charmides and Critias, that the characters in Plato are
very far from resembling the same characters in history. The repulsive
picture which is given of him in the Anabasis of Xenophon, where he also
appears as the friend of Aristippus 'and a fair youth having lovers,' has
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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 La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: "Next morning when he got up he said with apparent carelessness, 'Oh,
by the way, I must go to the Maire for the passport.' He put on his
hat, took two or three steps towards the door, paused, and took the
crucifix. His wife was trembling with joy.
" 'He will go to Duvivier's,' thought she.
"As soon as he had left, Madame de Merret rang for Rosalie, and then
in a terrible voice she cried: 'The pick! Bring the pick! and set to
work. I saw how Gorenflot did it yesterday; we shall have time to make
a gap and build it up again.'
"In an instant Rosalie had brought her mistress a sort of cleaver;
she, with a vehemence of which no words can give an idea, set to work
La Grande Breteche |
