| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: turn of mind, he generalizes the bad side of human nature, and has easily
brought down his principles to his practice. Philosophy and poetry alike
supply him with distinctions suited to his view of human life. He has a
good will to Socrates, whose talents he evidently admires, while he
censures the puerile use which he makes of them. He expresses a keen
intellectual interest in the argument. Like Anytus, again, he has a
sympathy with other men of the world; the Athenian statesmen of a former
generation, who showed no weakness and made no mistakes, such as Miltiades,
Themistocles, Pericles, are his favourites. His ideal of human character
is a man of great passions and great powers, which he has developed to the
utmost, and which he uses in his own enjoyment and in the government 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 Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: Sidney's sister: Pembroke's mother:
Death: ere thou has slain another,
Learnd and fair and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.
But Frank will not have her at any price, because his ideal Shakespear
is rather like a sailor in a melodrama; and a sailor in a melodrama
must adore his mother. I do not at all belittle such sailors. They
are the emblems of human generosity; but Shakespear was not an emblem:
he was a man and the author of Hamlet, who had no illusions about his
mother. In weak moments one almost wishes he had.
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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 Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: peasants, used to hardships and toil, labor incarnate, the labor by
which the world lives. These simple folk were indifferent to thought
and its treasures, ready to sink them all in a belief; and their faith
was but so much the more vigorous because they had never disputed
about it nor analyzed it. Such a nature is a virgin soil, conscience
has not been tampered with, feeling is deep and strong; repentance,
trouble, love, and work have developed, purified, concentrated, and
increased their force of will a hundred times, the will--the one thing
in man that resembles what learned doctors call the Soul.
The boat, guided by the well-nigh miraculous skill of the steersman,
came almost within sight of Ostend, when, not fifty paces from the
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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 Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: sufferer becomes indifferent to everything; the mother forgets her
child, the lover his mistress, the strongest man lies prone, like an
inert mass. Paul was carried to his cabin, where he stayed three days,
lying on his back, gorged with grog by the sailors, or vomiting;
thinking of nothing, and sleeping much. Then he revived into a species
of convalescence, and returned by degrees to his ordinary condition.
The first morning after he felt better he went on deck and passed the
poop, breathing in the salt breezes of another atmosphere. Putting his
hands into his pockets he felt the letters. At once he opened them,
beginning with that of his wife.
In order that the letter of the Comtesse de Manerville be fully
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