| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Enchanted Island of Yew by L. Frank Baum: and words were so absurd and unnatural that the prince was more amused
than angered by his new acquaintance, and presently laughed in his face.
"If all the people in this island are like you," he said, "I shall
have lots of fun with them. And you are only a boy, after all."
"I'm bigger than you!" declared the other, glaring fiercely at the prince.
"How much bigger?" asked Marvel, his eyes twinkling.
"Oh, ever so much!"
"Then fetch along that coil of rope, and follow me," said Prince Marvel.
"Fetch the rope yourself!" retorted the boy, bluntly. "I'm not your
servant." Then he put his hands in his pockets and coolly walked out
of the cave to look at the pile of senseless robbers.
The Enchanted Island of Yew |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: character to go wrong in a false position like what his father's made
for him, or he's making for himself, whichever you like to call it. And
for my part, I think it a disgrace," Frank would say generously.
Presently the sorrow and anxiety of this disinterested friend took
shape. He began in private, in conversations of two, to talk vaguely of
bad habits and low habits. "I must say I'm afraid he's going wrong
altogether," he would say. "I'll tell you plainly, and between
ourselves, I scarcely like to stay there any longer; only, man, I'm
positively afraid to leave him alone. You'll see, I shall be blamed for
it later on. I'm staying at a great sacrifice. I'm hindering my
chances at the Bar, and I can't blind my eyes to it. And what I'm
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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 Charmides by Plato: rarely to be found in modern nations; and in order to bring the Greek down
to the level of the modern, we must break up the long sentence into two or
more short ones. Neither is the same precision required in Greek as in
Latin or English, nor in earlier Greek as in later; there was nothing
shocking to the contemporary of Thucydides and Plato in anacolutha and
repetitions. In such cases the genius of the English language requires
that the translation should be more intelligible than the Greek. The want
of more distinctions between the demonstrative pronouns is also greatly
felt. Two genitives dependent on one another, unless familiarised by
idiom, have an awkward effect in English. Frequently the noun has to take
the place of the pronoun. 'This' and 'that' are found repeating themselves
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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 Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: well."
Mother and daughter separated, and neither dared to utter all her
thoughts.
In a country eaten up with the kind of social insubordination
disguised by the word Equality, a triumph of any kind whatsoever is a
sort of miracle which requires, like some other miracles for that
matter, the co-operation of skilled labor. Out of ten ovations offered
to ten living men, selected for this distinction by a grateful
country, you may be quite sure that nine are given from considerations
connected as remotely as possible with the conspicuous merits of the
renowned recipient. What was Voltaire's apotheosis at the Theatre-
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