| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: being chosen as arbitrator in a difference between them and the
Corinthians, he decided the controversy by ordering the Corinthians to
pay down twenty talents, and declaring the town and island of Leucas a
joint colony from both cities. From thence he fled into Epirus, and,
the Athenians and Lacedaemonians still pursuing him, he threw himself
upon chances of safety that seemed all but desperate. For he fled for
refuge to Admetus, king of the Molossians, who had formerly made some
request to the Athenians, when Themistocles was in the height of his
authority, and had been disdainfully used and insulted by him, and had
let it appear plain enough, that could he lay hold of him, he would take
his revenge. Yet in this misfortune, Themistocles, fearing the recent
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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 Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Meriting pride's implacable irony,
So much the worse for pride. Moreover,
Save her or fail, there was conscience always.
Meanwhile, a few misgivings of innocence,
Imploring to be sheltered and credited,
Were not amiss when she revealed them.
Whether she struggled or not, he saw them.
Also, he saw that while she was hearing him
Her eyes had more and more of the past in them;
And while he told what cautious honor
Told him was all he had best be sure of,
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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 Ion by Plato: to their final separation, is already working in the mind of Plato, and is
embodied by him in the contrast between Socrates and Ion. Yet here, as in
the Republic, Socrates shows a sympathy with the poetic nature. Also, the
manner in which Ion is affected by his own recitations affords a lively
illustration of the power which, in the Republic, Socrates attributes to
dramatic performances over the mind of the performer. His allusion to his
embellishments of Homer, in which he declares himself to have surpassed
Metrodorus of Lampsacus and Stesimbrotus of Thasos, seems to show that,
like them, he belonged to the allegorical school of interpreters. The
circumstance that nothing more is known of him may be adduced in
confirmation of the argument that this truly Platonic little work is not a
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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 The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: insanity as any man who has not actually gone over the border.
That gesture restrained me, so to speak.
The mate with the terrific whiskers was now putting the ship
on the other tack. In the moment of profound silence
which follows upon the hands going to their stations I heard
on the poop his raised voice: "Hard alee!" and the distant
shout of the order repeated on the main-deck. The sails,
in that light breeze, made but a faint fluttering noise.
It ceased. The ship was coming round slowly: I held my breath
in the renewed stillness of expectation; one wouldn't have
thought that there was a single living soul on her decks.
The Secret Sharer |
