| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Reef by Edith Wharton: way down the pier the prod of an umbrella increased his
exasperation by rousing him to the fact that it was raining.
Instantly the narrow ledge became a battle-ground of
thrusting, slanting, parrying domes. The wind rose with the
rain, and the harried wretches exposed to this double
assault wreaked on their neighbours the vengeance they could
not take on the elements.
Darrow, whose healthy enjoyment of life made him in general
a good traveller, tolerant of agglutinated humanity, felt
himself obscurely outraged by these promiscuous contacts.
It was as though all the people about him had taken his
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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 Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: dignity of the universe.
- Do I think that the particular form of lying often seen in
newspapers, under the title, "From our Foreign Correspondent," does
any harm? - Why, no, - I don't know that it does. I suppose it
doesn't really deceive people any more than the "Arabian Nights" or
"Gulliver's Travels" do. Sometimes the writers compile TOO
carelessly, though, and mix up facts out of geographies, and
stories out of the penny papers, so as to mislead those who are
desirous of information. I cut a piece out of one of the papers,
the other day, which contains a number of improbabilities, and, I
suspect, misstatements. I will send up and get it for you, if you
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: note of his life, held him bound to that household where he alone
could look after the affairs of the heedless owners. The long absence
of Adam and Clementine had given him peace. But the countess had
returned more lovely than ever, enjoying the freedom which marriage
brings to a Parisian woman, displaying the graces of a young wife and
the nameless attraction she gains from the happiness, or the
independence, bestowed upon her by a young man as trustful, as
chivalric, and as much in love as Adam. To know that he was the pivot
on which the splendor the household depended, to see Clementine when
she got out of her carriage on returning from some fete, or got into
it in the morning when she took her drive, to meet her on 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 Parmenides by Plato: time, 'to have been' in past, 'to be about to be' in future time. And as
time is ever moving forward, the one becomes older than itself; and
therefore younger than itself; and is older and also younger when in the
process of becoming it arrives at the present; and it is always older and
younger, for at any moment the one is, and therefore it becomes and is not
older and younger than itself but during an equal time with itself, and is
therefore contemporary with itself.
And what are the relations of the one to the others? Is it or does it
become older or younger than they? At any rate the others are more than
one, and one, being the least of all numbers, must be prior in time to
greater numbers. But on the other hand, one must come into being in a
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