| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Cromwell by William Shakespeare: [Exit omnes.]
ACT III. SCENE I. The principal bridge at Florence.
[Enter Cromwell and Hodge in their shirts, and
without Hats.]
HODGE.
Call ye this seeing of fashions? Marry, would I had
stayed at Putney still. O, Master Thomas, we are
spoiled, we are gone.
CROMWELL.
Content thee, man, this is but fortune.
HODGE.
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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 Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: and pathetic beside the quivering body of the little girl.
The Killer shuddered, scowling at the inanimate iron and
wood of the spear as though they constituted a sentient being
endowed with a malignant mind.
Korak wondered what the girl would do were he to drop suddenly
from the tree to her side. Most likely she would scream
and run away. Then would come the men of the village with
spears and guns and set upon him. They would either kill him
or drive him away. A lump rose in the boy's throat. He craved
the companionship of his own kind, though he scarce realized
how greatly. He would have liked to slip down beside the little
The Son of Tarzan |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: "Ah I've EVERYTHING before me. But on our hypothesis, you know,
they must be wonderful."
"They ARE!" said Miss Gostrey. "You're not therefore, you see,"
she added, "wholly without facts. They've BEEN, in effect,
wonderful."
To have got at something comparatively definite appeared at last a
little to help--a wave by which moreover, the next moment,
recollection was washed. "My young man does admit furthermore that
they're our friend's great interest."
"Is that the expression he uses?"
Strether more exactly recalled. "No--not quite."
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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 Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: could use the one and not the other. Or again, the Carthaginian coinage is
not wealth in our eyes, for we could not employ it, as we can silver, to
procure what we need, and therefore it is of no use to us.
ERASISTRATUS: True.
SOCRATES: What is useful to us, then, is wealth, and what is useless to us
is not wealth?
But how do you mean, Socrates? said Eryxias, interrupting. Do we not
employ in our intercourse with one another speech and violence (?) and
various other things? These are useful and yet they are not wealth.
SOCRATES: Clearly we have not yet answered the question, What is wealth?
That wealth must be useful, to be wealth at all,--thus much is acknowledged
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