| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Contrast by Royall Tyler: MANLY
Sister Charlotte!
CHARLOTTE
Now, now, now, brother [interrupting him], now
don't go to spoil my mirth with a dash of your grav-
ity; I am so glad to see you, I am in tiptop spirits.
Oh! that you could be with us at a little snug party.
There is Billy Simper, Jack Chaffe, and Colonel Van
Titter, Miss Promonade, and the two Miss Tambours,
sometimes make a party, with some other ladies, in a
side-box at the play. Everything is conducted with
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: should conquer if he wished to live. When she struck, he struck
blow for blow, force for force, his strength against hers,
glorying in that strange contest, though he never once forgot that
this last enemy was the girl he loved. It was not Moran whom he
fought; it was her force, her determination, her will, her
splendid independence, that he set himself to conquer.
Already she had dropped or flung away the dirk, and their battle
had become an issue of sheer physical strength between them. It
was a question now as to who should master the other. Twice she
had fought Wilbur to his knees, the heel of her hand upon his
face, his head thrust back between his shoulders, and twice he had
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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 Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: when you think she's going to be his wife and the mother of his child? I
would like to put my arms round her and touch her once, if she would let
me. She is so beautiful, they say."
"Oh, I could never bear to see her; it would kill me. And they are so
happy together today! He is loving her so!"
"Don't you want him to be happy?" The older woman looked down at her.
"Have you never loved him, at all?"
The younger woman's face was covered with her hands. "Oh, it's so
terrible, so dark! and I shall go on living year after year, always in this
awful pain! Oh, if I could only die!"
The older woman stood looking into the fire; then slowly and measuredly she
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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 Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: side; the long agony of the ten years' siege is due merely to the
want of a good commissariat in the Greek army; while the fall of
the city is the result of a united military attack consequent on a
good supply of provisions.
Now, it is to be observed that in this latter passage, as well as
elsewhere, Thucydides is in no sense of the word a sceptic as
regards his attitude towards the truth of these ancient legends.
Agamemnon and Atreus, Theseus and Eurystheus, even Minos, about
whom Herodotus has some doubts, are to him as real personages as
Alcibiades or Gylippus. The points in his historical criticism of
the past are, first, his rejection of all extra-natural
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