| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: which was a good bargain for him. The old sailor was very good to
the young couple and very fond of their little girl. Mrs. de Barral
was an equable, unassuming woman, at that time with a fund of simple
gaiety, and with no ambitions; but, woman-like, she longed for
change and for something interesting to happen now and then. It was
she who encouraged de Barral to accept the offer of a post in the
west-end branch of a great bank. It appears he shrank from such a
great adventure for a long time. At last his wife's arguments
prevailed. Later on she used to say: 'It's the only time he ever
listened to me; and I wonder now if it hadn't been better for me to
die before I ever made him go into that bank.'
Chance |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Hermione's Little Group of Serious Thinkers by Don Marquis: servatives worth listening to were radicals in their
youth." The loveliest man told us that the other
night -- our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you
know -- and it struck me as being profound.
And isn't profundity fascinating?
But Papa only glowered and said, "Umph!"
Papa, you know, is an obstructionist.
"Papa," I said to him, "what is stubbornness in
you has become will power in me. You will never
dominate me -- NEVER! You should study heredity;
it's wonderful, simply WONDERFUL!
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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 Phaedrus by Plato: seem good to the city at one time, and at another time the reverse of good?
PHAEDRUS: That is true.
SOCRATES: Have we not heard of the Eleatic Palamedes (Zeno), who has an
art of speaking by which he makes the same things appear to his hearers
like and unlike, one and many, at rest and in motion?
PHAEDRUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: The art of disputation, then, is not confined to the courts and
the assembly, but is one and the same in every use of language; this is the
art, if there be such an art, which is able to find a likeness of
everything to which a likeness can be found, and draws into the light of
day the likenesses and disguises which are used by others?
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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 The Brother of Daphne by Dornford Yates: she cleared a little space, and began fitting the bits together
at a rate that was astonishing. Then she turned her attention to
the background. Laid upon its side, the mysterious ladder became
a distant fence, and little by little a landscape grew into being
under her small fingers. Suddenly she caught my arm.
"Somebody's coming!" she whispered.
I heard footsteps crunch on a path's gravel, then all was silent
again. Whoever it was, was coming towards us over the lawn. A
clump of rhododendrons hid us from them, and them from us.
"Behind there!" I whispered, pointing to three tall elms at our
back, which grew so close together that they formed a giant
The Brother of Daphne |
