| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: say what he wished to say. "Mary, you're splendid," he concluded. She
faced him as he spoke, and gave him her hand. She had suffered and
relinquished, she had seen her future turned from one of infinite
promise to one of barrenness, and yet, somehow, over what she scarcely
knew, and with what results she could hardly foretell, she had
conquered. With Ralph's eyes upon her, smiling straight back at him
serenely and proudly, she knew, for the first time, that she had
conquered. She let him kiss her hand.
The streets were empty enough on Sunday night, and if the Sabbath, and
the domestic amusements proper to the Sabbath, had not kept people
indoors, a high strong wind might very probably have done so. Ralph
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: inconsistency is to be found in Odysseus. Hippias replies that Achilles
unintentionally, but Odysseus intentionally, speaks falsehood. But is it
better to do wrong intentionally or unintentionally? Socrates, relying on
the analogy of the arts, maintains the former, Hippias the latter of the
two alternatives...All this is quite conceived in the spirit of Plato, who
is very far from making Socrates always argue on the side of truth. The
over-reasoning on Homer, which is of course satirical, is also in the
spirit of Plato. Poetry turned logic is even more ridiculous than
'rhetoric turned logic,' and equally fallacious. There were reasoners in
ancient as well as in modern times, who could never receive the natural
impression of Homer, or of any other book which they read. The argument 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 A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: "Ah, by the by, there is not a place in the house, is there?" asked
Finot.
"You will always find a place in our hearts," said the actress, with
the sweetest smile imaginable.
"I say, my little Florville, are you cured already of your fancy? They
told me that a Russian prince had carried you off."
"Who carries off women in these days" said Florville (she who had
cried, "Stop, wretched man!"). "We stayed at Saint-Mande for ten days,
and my prince got off with paying the forfeit money to the management.
The manager will go down on his knees to pray for some more Russian
princes," Florville continued, laughing; "the forfeit money was so
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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 An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: The faithful servant espoused his mistress's disappointment; he
divined it, and he promptly carried away the liqueurs of Madame
Amphoux, which were offered to a bachelor, and not to the husband of a
Russian woman.
All these details were noticed and laughed at. The Abbe de Sponde knew
the object of Monsieur de Troisville's journey; but, absent-minded as
usual, he forgot it, not supposing that his niece could have the
slightest interest in Monsieur de Troisville's marriage. As for the
viscount, preoccupied with the object of his journey, and, like many
husbands, not eager to talk about his wife, he had had no occasion to
say he was married; besides, he would naturally suppose that
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