| 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: couch-fashion, a mantle of soft stuff lined with grey fur that was
familiar to his eyes and that one of his hands kept fondly feeling
as for its pledge of truth. Mrs. Muldoon's face had gone, but the
other, the second he had recognised, hung over him in a way that
showed how he was still propped and pillowed. He took it all in,
and the more he took it the more it seemed to suffice: he was as
much at peace as if he had had food and drink. It was the two
women who had found him, on Mrs. Muldoon's having plied, at her
usual hour, her latch-key - and on her having above all arrived
while Miss Staverton still lingered near the house. She had been
turning away, all anxiety, from worrying the vain bell-handle - her
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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 Odyssey by Homer: good will. When he got back, his father and mother were rejoiced
to see him, and asked him all about it, and how he had hurt
himself to get the scar; so he told them how the boar had ripped
him when he was out hunting with Autolycus and his sons on Mt.
Parnassus.
As soon as Euryclea had got the scarred limb in her hands and
had well hold of it, she recognised it and dropped the foot at
once. The leg fell into the bath, which rang out and was
overturned, so that all the water was spilt on the ground;
Euryclea's eyes between her joy and her grief filled with tears,
and she could not speak, but she caught Ulysses by the beard and
The Odyssey |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: They seldom desisted early, but continued to run and
insist--beside the wagon while they could, and behind
it until they lost breath. Then they turned and chased
a returning carriage back to their trading-post again.
After several hours of this, without any intermission,
it becomes almost annoying. I do not know what we
should have done without the returning carriages to draw
off the pursuit. However, there were plenty of these,
loaded with dusty tourists and piled high with luggage.
Indeed, from Lucerne to Interlaken we had the spectacle,
among other scenery, of an unbroken procession of
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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 Gorgias by Plato: as ideal and almost as paradoxical to the common understanding as Plato's
conception of happiness. For the greatest happiness of the greatest number
may mean also the greatest pain of the individual which will procure the
greatest pleasure of the greatest number. Ideas of utility, like those of
duty and right, may be pushed to unpleasant consequences. Nor can Plato in
the Gorgias be deemed purely self-regarding, considering that Socrates
expressly mentions the duty of imparting the truth when discovered to
others. Nor must we forget that the side of ethics which regards others is
by the ancients merged in politics. Both in Plato and Aristotle, as well
as in the Stoics, the social principle, though taking another form, is
really far more prominent than in most modern treatises on ethics.
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