| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Prufrock/Other Observations by T. S. Eliot: Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
* * * *
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
Prufrock/Other Observations |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: thousand louis d'or on Mme. de la Popeliniere after that affair of the
hiding-place behind the hearth. Agnes Sorel, in all simplicity, took
her fortune to Charles VII., and the King accepted it. Jacques Coeur
kept the crown for France; he was allowed to do it, and woman-like,
France was ungrateful."
"Gentlemen," said Bixiou, "a love that does not imply an indissoluble
friendship, to my thinking, is momentary libertinage. What sort of
entire surrender is it that keeps something back? Between these two
diametrically opposed doctrines, the one as profoundly immoral as the
other, there is no possible compromise. It seems to me that any
shrinking from a complete union is surely due to a belief that the
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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 The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: author's ear; nor has he claim to further praise, or to be more
deeply censured, than in proportion to the good or bad judgment
which he has employed in selecting his materials, as he has
studiously avoided any attempt at ornament which might interfere
with the simplicity of the tale.
At the same time, it must be admitted that the particular class
of stories which turns on the marvellous possesses a stronger
influence when told than when committed to print. The volume
taken up at noonday, though rehearsing the same incidents,
conveys a much more feeble impression than is achieved by the
voice of the speaker on a circle of fireside auditors, who hang
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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 Menexenus by Plato: away our souls with their embellished words; in every conceivable form they
praise the city; and they praise those who died in war, and all our
ancestors who went before us; and they praise ourselves also who are still
alive, until I feel quite elevated by their laudations, and I stand
listening to their words, Menexenus, and become enchanted by them, and all
in a moment I imagine myself to have become a greater and nobler and finer
man than I was before. And if, as often happens, there are any foreigners
who accompany me to the speech, I become suddenly conscious of having a
sort of triumph over them, and they seem to experience a corresponding
feeling of admiration at me, and at the greatness of the city, which
appears to them, when they are under the influence of the speaker, more
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