| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeanette Duncan: Judy. It was an opinion, of course, a good deal challenged, even in
Rawul Pindi, where it was thought, especially in the beginning, that
acquiescence was the most the Harbottles could hope for. That is
not enough in India; cordiality is the common right. I could not
have Judy preserving her atmosphere at our tea-parties and
gymkhanas. Not that there were two minds among us about 'the case';
it was a preposterous case, sentimentally undignified, from some
points of view deplorable. I chose to reserve my point of view,
from which I saw it, on Judy's behalf, merely quixotic, preferring
on Robert's just to close my eyes. There is no doubt that his first
wife was odious to a degree which it is simply pleasanter not to
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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 House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde: be dazzled.
'Thou couldst not believe how marvellous a place it was. There
were huge tortoise-shells full of pearls, and hollowed moonstones
of great size piled up with red rubies. The gold was stored in
coffers of elephant-hide, and the gold-dust in leather bottles.
There were opals and sapphires, the former in cups of crystal, and
the latter in cups of jade. Round green emeralds were ranged in
order upon thin plates of ivory, and in one corner were silk bags
filled, some with turquoise-stones, and others with beryls. The
ivory horns were heaped with purple amethysts, and the horns of
brass with chalcedonies and sards. The pillars, which were of
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: what circumstances he entered the service. I like listening to
sounds. Two rooms away from me my daughter Liza says something
rapidly in her sleep, or my wife crosses the drawing-room with a
candle and invariably drops the matchbox; or a warped cupboard
creaks; or the burner of the lamp suddenly begins to hum -- and
all these sounds, for some reason, excite me.
To lie awake at night means to be at every moment conscious of
being abnormal, and so I look forward with impatience to the
morning and the day when I have a right to be awake. Many
wearisome hours pass before the cock crows in the yard. He is my
first bringer of good tidings. As soon as he crows I know that
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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 Cratylus by Plato: which the former cannot attain. But the truth seems to be that modern
languages, if through the loss of inflections and genders they lack some
power or beauty or expressiveness or precision which is possessed by the
ancient, are in many other respects superior to them: the thought is
generally clearer, the connexion closer, the sentence and paragraph are
better distributed. The best modern languages, for example English or
French, possess as great a power of self-improvement as the Latin, if not
as the Greek. Nor does there seem to be any reason why they should ever
decline or decay. It is a popular remark that our great writers are
beginning to disappear: it may also be remarked that whenever a great
writer appears in the future he will find the English language as perfect
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