| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Confidence by Henry James: I can't bear it now."
This outbreak of a passionate sense of injury in a man habitually
so undemonstrative, so little disposed to call attention to himself,
had in it something at once of the touching and the terrible.
Bernard, for an instant, felt almost bewildered; he asked himself
whether he had not, after all, been a monster of duplicity.
He was guilty of the weakness of taking refuge in what is called,
I believe, in legal phrase, a side-issue.
"Don't say all this before Angela!" he exclaimed, with a kind
of artificial energy. "You know she is not in the least at fault,
and that it can only give her pain. The thing is between ourselves."
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: be invited to take part in the consultation. He is a stranger to
Lysimachus, but is afterwards recognised as the son of his old friend
Sophroniscus, with whom he never had a difference to the hour of his death.
Socrates is also known to Nicias, to whom he had introduced the excellent
Damon, musician and sophist, as a tutor for his son, and to Laches, who had
witnessed his heroic behaviour at the battle of Delium (compare Symp.).
Socrates, as he is younger than either Nicias or Laches, prefers to wait
until they have delivered their opinions, which they give in a
characteristic manner. Nicias, the tactician, is very much in favour of
the new art, which he describes as the gymnastics of war--useful when the
ranks are formed, and still more useful when they are broken; creating a
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain: even if they git off THAT easy."
Jim says:
"What's an indemnity, Mars Tom?"
"It's cash, that's what it is."
"Who gits it, Mars Tom?"
"Why, WE do."
"En who gits de apology?"
"The United States. Or, we can take whichever
we please. We can take the apology, if we want to,
and let the gov'ment take the money."
"How much money will it be, Mars Tom?"
|
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 Peter Pan by James M. Barrie: comes Tiger Lily, proudly erect, a princess in her own right.
She is the most beautiful of dusky Dianas [Diana = goddess of the
woods] and the belle of the Piccaninnies, coquettish [flirting],
cold and amorous [loving] by turns; there is not a brave who
would not have the wayward thing to wife, but she staves off the
altar with a hatchet. Observe how they pass over fallen twigs
without making the slightest noise. The only sound to be heard
is their somewhat heavy breathing. The fact is that they are all
a little fat just now after the heavy gorging, but in time they
will work this off. For the moment, however, it constitutes
their chief danger.
Peter Pan |
