| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: envelope, signed his name, and put it through the letter-slit. It
crossed his mind to hunt other pupils for his vacant time, but he
decided against this at once, and returned to his own room. Three
o'clock found him back at the door, knocking scrupulously, The idea of
performing his side of the contract, of tendering his goods and standing
ready at all times to deliver them, was in his commercially mature mind.
This time he had brought a neat piece of paper with him, and wrote upon
it, "Called, three P.M.," and signed it as before, and departed to his
room with a sense of fulfilled obligations.
Bertie and Billy had lunched at Mattapan quite happily on cold ham, cold
pie, and doughnuts. Mattapan, not being accustomed to such lilies 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 A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: cemetery. Paul, sobbing, headed the procession; Monsieur Bourais
followed, and then came the principle inhabitants of the town, the
women covered with black capes, and Felicite. The memory of her
nephew, and the thought that she had not been able to render him these
honours, made her doubly unhappy, and she felt as if he were being
buried with Virginia.
Madame Aubain's grief was uncontrollable. At first she rebelled
against God, thinking that he was unjust to have taken away her child
--she who had never done anything wrong, and whose conscience was so
pure! But no! she ought to have taken her South. Other doctors would
have saved her. She accused herself, prayed to be able to join her
A Simple Soul |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: behalf of the craftsmen and politicians; Lycon, on behalf of the
rhetoricians: and as I said at the beginning, I cannot expect to get rid
of such a mass of calumny all in a moment. And this, O men of Athens, is
the truth and the whole truth; I have concealed nothing, I have dissembled
nothing. And yet, I know that my plainness of speech makes them hate me,
and what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth?--Hence
has arisen the prejudice against me; and this is the reason of it, as you
will find out either in this or in any future enquiry.
I have said enough in my defence against the first class of my accusers; I
turn to the second class. They are headed by Meletus, that good man and
true lover of his country, as he calls himself. Against these, too, I must
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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 Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: as I have said, he pities too much; but that he is not insensible to
humor is shewn not only by his appreciation of Wilde, but by the fact
that the group of contributors who made his editorship of The Saturday
Review so remarkable, and of whom I speak none the less highly because
I happened to be one of them myself, were all, in their various ways,
humorists.
"Sidney's Sister: Pembroke's Mother"
And now to return to Shakespear. Though Mr Harris followed Tyler in
identifying Mary Fitton as the Dark Lady, and the Earl of Pembroke as
the addressee of the other sonnets and the man who made love
successfully to Shakespear's mistress, he very characteristically
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