| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: as a tramp hates washing, dread and resist change, oppose
experiment, despise science. The world is our battleground; and all
history, all literature that matters, all science, deals with this
conflict of the thing that is and the speculative "if" that will
destroy it.
But that is why I did not see Margaret Seddon again for five years.
CHAPTER THE SECOND
MARGARET IN LONDON
1
I was twenty-seven when I met Margaret again, and the intervening
five years had been years of vigorous activity for me, if not of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: I was a singer, of course, but Soulsby hardly knew one
note from another. I taught him to sing, and he went
at it patiently and diligently, like a little man.
And I invented that scheme of finding tunes which the crowd
didn't know, and so couldn't break in on and smother.
I simply took Chopin--he is full of sixths, you know--
and I got all sorts of melodies out of his waltzes and
mazurkas and nocturnes and so on, and I trained Soulsby
just to sing those sixths so as to make the harmony,
and there you are. He couldn't sing by himself any more than
a crow, but he's got those sixths of his down to a hair.
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: this time; I shouldn't ever wish to hear pleasanter,
though the profanity was not good, being awkwardly
put together, and with the crash-word almost in the
middle instead of at the end, where, of course, it ought
to have been.
I was ready and willing to get free now; I hadn't
wanted to get free any sooner. No, I cannot quite
say that. I had wanted to, but I had not been willing
to take desperate chances, and had always dissuaded
the king from them. But now -- ah, it was a new
atmosphere! Liberty would be worth any cost that
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
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 Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: holds out to its wearied and yet impatient intellect, the bait of
decisions already made for it, of objects of admiration already formed
and systematised.
Therefore let us honour the grammarian in his place; and, among others,
these old grammarians of Alexandria; only being sure that as soon as any
man begins, as they did, displaying himself peacock-fashion, boasting of
his science as the great pursuit of humanity, and insulting his fellow-
craftsmen, he becomes, ipso facto, unable to discover any more truth for
us, having put on a habit of mind to which induction is impossible; and
is thenceforth to be passed by with a kindly but a pitying smile. And
so, indeed, it happened with these quarrelsome Alexandrian grammarians,
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