| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov: remain an everlasting secret between him and
Heaven.
However, in moments when he casts aside the
tragic mantle, Grushnitski is charming and
entertaining enough. I am always interested
to see him with women -- it is then that he puts
forth his finest efforts, I think!
We met like a couple of old friends. I began
to question him about the personages of note and
as to the sort of life which was led at the waters.
"It is a rather prosaic life," he said, with a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: to see Callias, but we want to see Protagoras; and I must request you to
announce us. At last, after a good deal of difficulty, the man was
persuaded to open the door.
When we entered, we found Protagoras taking a walk in the cloister; and
next to him, on one side, were walking Callias, the son of Hipponicus, and
Paralus, the son of Pericles, who, by the mother's side, is his half-
brother, and Charmides, the son of Glaucon. On the other side of him were
Xanthippus, the other son of Pericles, Philippides, the son of Philomelus;
also Antimoerus of Mende, who of all the disciples of Protagoras is the
most famous, and intends to make sophistry his profession. A train of
listeners followed him; the greater part of them appeared to be foreigners,
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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 Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: acquirements and culture weigh beside sterling personal character.
While her simple sorrow for his loss took a softer edge with the
lapse of the autumn and winter seasons, her self-reproach at
having had a possible hand in causing it knew little abatement.
Little occurred at Hintock during these months of the fall and
decay of the leaf. Discussion of the almost contemporaneous death
of Mrs. Charmond abroad had waxed and waned. Fitzpiers had had a
marvellous escape from being dragged into the inquiry which
followed it, through the accident of their having parted just
before under the influence of Marty South's letter--the tiny
instrument of a cause deep in nature.
The Woodlanders |
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 Symposium by Plato: of them we should hesitate to ascribe, any more than to the attachment of
Achilles and Patroclus in Homer, an immoral or licentious character. There
were many, doubtless, to whom the love of the fair mind was the noblest
form of friendship (Rep.), and who deemed the friendship of man with man to
be higher than the love of woman, because altogether separated from the
bodily appetites. The existence of such attachments may be reasonably
attributed to the inferiority and seclusion of woman, and the want of a
real family or social life and parental influence in Hellenic cities; and
they were encouraged by the practice of gymnastic exercises, by the
meetings of political clubs, and by the tie of military companionship.
They were also an educational institution: a young person was specially
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