| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Last War: A World Set Free by H. G. Wells: end, before many years are out, this must eventually change war,
transit, lighting, building, and every sort of manufacture, even
agriculture, every material human concern----'
Then Holsten stopped short. Lawson had leapt to his feet. 'Damn
that dog!' cried Lawson. 'Look at it now. Hi! Here!
Phewoo--phewoo phewoo! Come HERE, Bobs! Come HERE!'
The young scientific man, with his bandaged hand, sat at the
green table, too tired to convey the wonder of the thing he had
sought so long, his friend whistled and bawled for his dog, and
the Sunday people drifted about them through the spring sunshine.
For a moment or so Holsten stared at Lawson in astonishment, for
The Last War: A World Set Free |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling: and said, 'Rome falls! Push her down!' We fought you.
You sent men. We were beaten. After that we said to the
Winged Hats, 'You are liars! Make our men alive that
Rome killed, and we will believe you.' They went away
ashamed. Now they come back bold, and they tell the old
tale, which we begin to believe - that Rome falls!"
"'Give me three years' peace on the Wall," cried
Maximus, "and I will show you and all the ravens how
they lie!"
"'Ah, I wish it too! I wish to save what is left of the corn
from the millstones. But you shoot us Picts when we
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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 Adieu by Honore de Balzac: from the bank with odious selfishness. The major, fearing the fury of
this first rush, held back the countess and the general, but too late
he saw the whole raft covered, men pressing together like crowds at a
theatre.
"Savages!" he cried, "it was I who gave you the idea of that raft. I
have saved you, and you deny me a place."
A confused murmur answered him. The men at the edge of the raft, armed
with long sticks, pressed with violence against the shore to send off
the frail construction with sufficient impetus to force its way
through corpses and ice-floes to the other shore.
"Thunder of heaven! I'll sweep you into the water if you don't take
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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 Gorgias by Plato: and metre, there will remain speech? (Compare Republic.)
CALLICLES: To be sure.
SOCRATES: And this speech is addressed to a crowd of people?
CALLICLES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then poetry is a sort of rhetoric?
CALLICLES: True.
SOCRATES: And do not the poets in the theatres seem to you to be
rhetoricians?
CALLICLES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then now we have discovered a sort of rhetoric which is
addressed to a crowd of men, women, and children, freemen and slaves. And
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