| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: muddled for him any earlier view; and he tried to convince himself
that he might perhaps then have gone into the room and,
inadvertently, automatically, on coming out, have drawn the door
after him. The difficulty was that this exactly was what he never
did; it was against his whole policy, as he might have said, the
essence of which was to keep vistas clear. He had them from the
first, as he was well aware, quite on the brain: the strange
apparition, at the far end of one of them, of his baffled "prey"
(which had become by so sharp an irony so little the term now to
apply!) was the form of success his imagination had most cherished,
projecting into it always a refinement of beauty. He had known
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: nals of distress. It was death without any sort of
fuss. The Hamburg ship, filling all at once, cap-
sized as she sank, and at daylight there was not
even the end of a spar to be seen above water. She
was missed, of course, and at first the Coastguard-
men surmised that she had either dragged her an-
chor or parted her cable some time during the
night, and had been blown out to sea. Then, after
the tide turned, the wreck must have shifted a little
and released some of the bodies, because a child
--a little fair-haired child in a red frock--
Amy Foster |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: character of a 'know nothing' and delivers a speech, generally pretends
that what he is speaking is not his own composition. Thus in the Cratylus
he is run away with; in the Phaedrus he has heard somebody say something--
is inspired by the genius loci; in the Symposium he derives his wisdom from
Diotima of Mantinea, and the like. But he does not impose on Menexenus by
his dissimulation. Without violating the character of Socrates, Plato, who
knows so well how to give a hint, or some one writing in his name,
intimates clearly enough that the speech in the Menexenus like that in the
Phaedrus is to be attributed to Socrates. The address of the dead to the
living at the end of the oration may also be compared to the numerous
addresses of the same kind which occur in Plato, in whom the dramatic
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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 Mansion by Henry van Dyke: spoke gently:
"These are the things that the King never forgets; and because
there were a few of them in your life, you have a little place
here."
The sense of coldness and hardness under John Weightman's hands
grew sharper and more distinct. The feeling of bodily weariness
and
lassitude weighed upon him, but there was a calm, almost a
lightness,
in his heart as he listened to the fading vibrations of the
silvery bell-tones. The chimney clock on the mantel had just
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