| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Rescue by Joseph Conrad: Rajah gave me the ring and I crept on my stomach over the sand,
and I swam in the night--and I, Jaffir, the best swimmer in Wajo,
and the slave of Hassim, tell you--his message to you is 'Depart
and forget'--and this is his gift--take!"
He caught hold suddenly of Lingard's hand, thrust roughly into it
the ring, and then for the first time looked round the cabin with
wondering but fearless eyes. They lingered over the semicircle of
bayonets and rested fondly on musket-racks. He grunted in
admiration.
"Ya-wa, this is strength!" he murmured as if to himself. "But it
has come too late."
The Rescue |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: him, he would have gone to the service and the interment, and I myself
would have been at the mass--"
"Very well, fair lady," said Gaudissart. "Be so good as to have the
documents drawn up, and at four o'clock I will bring this German to
you. Please remember me to your charming daughter the Vicomtesse, and
ask her to tell my illustrious friend the great statesman, her good
and excellent father-in-law, how deeply I am devoted to him and his,
and ask him to continue his valued favors. I owe my life to his uncle
the judge, and my success in life to him; and I should wish to be
bound to both you and your daughter by the high esteem which links us
with persons of rank and influence. I wish to leave the theatre and
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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 A Princess of Parms by Edgar Rice Burroughs: the valley and was much surprised to note three little dots
in about the same place I had last seen my friend and his
two pack animals. I am not given to needless worrying, but
the more I tried to convince myself that all was well with
Powell, and that the dots I had seen on his trail were
antelope or wild horses, the less I was able to assure myself.
Since we had entered the territory we had not seen a
hostile Indian, and we had, therefore, become careless in the
extreme, and were wont to ridicule the stories we had
heard of the great numbers of these vicious marauders that
were supposed to haunt the trails, taking their toll in lives
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