| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: convention of desiccated bugs and butterflies pinned to a card;
painted toy-dog, seated upon bellows-attachment--drops its
under jaw and squeaks when pressed upon; sugar-candy rabbit--
limbs and features merged together, not strongly defined;
pewter presidential-campaign medal; miniature card-board wood-sawyer,
to be attached to the stove-pipe and operated by the heat;
small Napoleon, done in wax; spread-open daguerreotypes
of dim children, parents, cousins, aunts, and friends,
in all attitudes but customary ones; no templed portico at back,
and manufactured landscape stretching away in the distance--
that came in later, with the photograph; all these vague figures
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: larger moulds or outlines in which the human mind has been cast. From
these the individual derives so much as he is able to comprehend or has the
opportunity of learning.
THEAETETUS
by
Plato
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates, Theodorus, Theaetetus.
Euclid and Terpsion meet in front of Euclid's house in Megara; they enter
the house, and the dialogue is read to them by a servant.
EUCLID: Have you only just arrived from the country, Terpsion?
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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 Youth by Joseph Conrad: Queer name, isn't it? She belonged to a man Wilmer,
Wilcox--some name like that; but he has been bankrupt
and dead these twenty years or more, and his name don't
matter. She had been laid up in Shadwell basin for ever
so long. You can imagine her state. She was all rust,
dust, grime--soot aloft, dirt on deck. To me it was
like coming out of a palace into a ruined cottage. She
was about 400 tons, had a primitive windlass, wooden
latches to the doors, not a bit of brass about her, and a
big square stern. There was on it, below her name in
big letters, a lot of scroll work, with the gilt off, and some
Youth |
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 Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: the day of Thomas' funeral in the village, and Alex and I were in
the conservatory cutting flowers for the old man's casket. Liddy
is never so happy as when she is making herself wretched, and now
her mouth drooped while her eyes were triumphant.
"I always said there were plenty of things going on here,
right under our noses, that we couldn't see," she said, holding
out her apron.
"I don't see with my nose," I remarked. "What have you got
there?"
Liddy pushed aside a half-dozen geranium pots, and in the space
thus cleared she dumped the contents of her apron--a handful of
The Circular Staircase |
