| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: by likeness of the truth which can only be attained by the knowledge of it,
and that the aim of the good man should not be to please or persuade his
fellow-servants, but to please his good masters who are the gods. Rhetoric
has a fair beginning in this.
Enough of the art of speaking; let us now proceed to consider the true use
of writing. There is an old Egyptian tale of Theuth, the inventor of
writing, showing his invention to the god Thamus, who told him that he
would only spoil men's memories and take away their understandings. From
this tale, of which young Athens will probably make fun, may be gathered
the lesson that writing is inferior to speech. For it is like a picture,
which can give no answer to a question, and has only a deceitful likeness
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: suddenly, on her way home, cutting black and sinister into the
wake of the moon under a sable wing, while to them our sail must
have been a vision of white and dazzling radiance. Without
altering the course a hair's breadth we slipped by each other
within an oar's length. A drawling, sardonic hail came out of
her. Instantly, as if by magic, our dozing pilots got on their
feet in a body. An incredible babel of bantering shouts burst
out, a jocular, passionate, voluble chatter, which lasted till
the boats were stern to stern, theirs all bright now, and, with a
shining sail to our eyes, we turned all black to their vision,
and drew away from them under a sable wing. That extraordinary
A Personal Record |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: Albemarle Street no later than on the morrow. I failed to find her
at home, but she wrote to me and I went again; she wanted so much
to hear more about Neil Paraday. I returned repeatedly, I may
briefly declare, to supply her with this information. She had been
immensely taken, the more she thought of it, with that idea of mine
about the act of homage: it had ended by filling her with a
generous rapture. She positively desired to do something sublime
for him, though indeed I could see that, as this particular flight
was difficult, she appreciated the fact that my visits kept her up.
I had it on my conscience to keep her up: I neglected nothing that
would contribute to it, and her conception of our cherished
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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 Sophist by Plato: being.
THEAETETUS: So we must infer.
STRANGER: And being itself may be said to be other than the other kinds.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: Then we may infer that being is not, in respect of as many other
things as there are; for not-being these it is itself one, and is not the
other things, which are infinite in number.
THEAETETUS: That is not far from the truth.
STRANGER: And we must not quarrel with this result, since it is of the
nature of classes to have communion with one another; and if any one denies
our present statement [viz., that being is not, etc.], let him first argue
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