| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: I had heard of him at tiffin and at dinner; I had heard of him in
a place called Pulo Laut from a half-caste gentleman there, who
described himself as the manager of a coal-mine; which sounded
civilized and progressive till you heard that the mine could not
be worked at present because it was haunted by some particularly
atrocious ghosts. I had heard of him in a place called Dongola,
in the Island of Celebes, when the Rajah of that little-known
seaport (you can get no anchorage there in less than fifteen
fathom, which is extremely inconvenient) came on board in a
friendly way, with only two attendants, and drank bottle after
bottle of soda-water on the after-sky light with my good friend
A Personal Record |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: of the Lunch Club to utter a collective demand for a book of
reference.
At this point the production of her treasured volume gave Mrs.
Leveret, for a moment, the unusual experience of occupying the
centre front; but she was not able to hold it long, for
Appropriate Allusions contained no mention of Xingu.
"Oh, that's not the kind of thing we want!" exclaimed Miss Van
Vluyck. She cast a disparaging glance over Mrs. Ballinger's
assortment of literature, and added impatiently: "Haven't you any
useful books?"
"Of course I have," replied Mrs. Ballinger indignantly; "but I
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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 Gorgias by Plato: shipwright, or any other look all of them to their own work, and do not
select and apply at random what they apply, but strive to give a definite
form to it? The artist disposes all things in order, and compels the one
part to harmonize and accord with the other part, until he has constructed
a regular and systematic whole; and this is true of all artists, and in the
same way the trainers and physicians, of whom we spoke before, give order
and regularity to the body: do you deny this?
CALLICLES: No; I am ready to admit it.
SOCRATES: Then the house in which order and regularity prevail is good;
that in which there is disorder, evil?
CALLICLES: Yes.
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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 Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: notion what they referred to. For the rest, he was a witty, florid
little individual, and much addicted to a practice of what he called
"embellishing" whatsoever he had to say--a feat which he performed
with the aid of such by-the-way phrases as "my dear sir," "my good
So-and-So," "you know," "you understand," "you may imagine,"
"relatively speaking," "for instance," and "et cetera"; of which
phrases he would add sackfuls to his speech. He could also "embellish"
his words by the simple expedient of half-closing, half-winking one
eye; which trick communicated to some of his satirical utterances
quite a mordant effect. Nor were his colleagues a wit inferior to him
in enlightenment. For instance, one of them made a regular practice of
Dead Souls |
