| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: for a long time unsuccessful. "I was found with the mark of the
Beast upon me in every list," was Invernahyle's expression. At
length Colonel Whitefoord applied to the Duke of Cumberland, and
urged his suit with every argument which he could think of, being
still repulsed, he took his commission from his bosom, and having
said something of his own and his family's exertions in the cause
of the House of Hanover, begged to resign his situation in their
service, since he could not be permitted to show his gratitude to
the person to whom he owed his life. The duke, struck with his
earnestness, desired him to take up his commission, and granted
the protection required for the family of Invernahyle.
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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: and an inexhaustible patience in listening to their
tales.
One day, as we trotted out of a large village into
a shady bit of road, I saw on our left hand a low,
black cottage, with diamond panes in the windows,
a creeper on the end wall, a roof of shingle, and
some roses climbing on the rickety trellis-work of
the tiny porch. Kennedy pulled up to a walk. A
woman, in full sunlight, was throwing a dripping
blanket over a line stretched between two old ap-
ple-trees. And as the bobtailed, long-necked chest-
Amy Foster |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: at his heart which no man can misapprehend. He loved Mademoiselle
de Rouville so passionately that, in spite of the theft of the
purse, he still worshiped her. His love was that of the Chevalier
des Grieux admiring his mistress, and holding her as pure, even
on the cart which carries such lost creatures to prison. "Why
should not my love keep her the purest of women? Why abandon her
to evil and to vice without holding out a rescuing hand to her?"
The idea of this mission pleased him. Love makes a gain of
everything. Nothing tempts a young man more than to play the part
of a good genius to a woman. There is something inexplicably
romantic in such an enterprise which appeals to a highly-strung
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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 On Revenues by Xenophon: expressed, see "Cyrop." VIII. i. 8; viii. 5.
As, however, it has been maintained by certain leading statesmen in
Athens that the recognised standard of right and wrong is as high at
Athens as elsewhere, but that, owing to the pressure of poverty on the
masses, a certain measure of injustice in their dealing with the
allied states[2] could not be avoided; I set myself to discover
whether by any manner of means it were possible for the citizens of
Athens to be supported solely from the soil of Attica itself, which
was obviously the most equitable solution. For if so, herein lay, as I
believed, the antidote at once to their own poverty and to the feeling
of suspicion with which they are regarded by the rest of Hellas.
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