| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: anxiously about `the gowns from Glasgow,' and very careful to
describe the toilet of the Princess Charlotte, whom he had
seen in church `in a Pelisse and Bonnet of the same colour of
cloth as the Boys' Dress jackets, trimmed with blue satin
ribbons; the hat or Bonnet, Mr. Spittal said, was a Parisian
slouch, and had a plume of three white feathers.' But all
this leaves a blank impression, and it is rather by reading
backward in these old musty letters, which have moved me now
to laughter and now to impatience, that I glean occasional
glimpses of how she seemed to her contemporaries, and trace
(at work in her queer world of godly and grateful parasites) a
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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 School For Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan: where no two guests are of a nation----
CRABTREE. Or a Congress at the close of a general War--wherein all
the members even to her eyes appear to have a different interest
and her Nose and Chin are the only Parties likely to join issue.
MRS. CANDOUR. Ha! ha! ha!
SIR PETER. Mercy on my Life[!] a Person they dine with twice a week!
[Aside.]
LADY SNEERWELL. Go--go--you are a couple of provoking Toads.
MRS. CANDOUR. Nay but I vow you shall not carry the Laugh off so--
for give me leave to say, that Mrs. Ogle----
SIR PETER. Madam--madam--I beg your Pardon--there's no stopping
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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 Time Machine by H. G. Wells: are curious. For instance, here is a portrait of a man at eight
years old, another at fifteen, another at seventeen, another at
twenty-three, and so on. All these are evidently sections, as it
were, Three-Dimensional representations of his Four-Dimensioned
being, which is a fixed and unalterable thing.
`Scientific people,' proceeded the Time Traveller, after the
pause required for the proper assimilation of this, `know very
well that Time is only a kind of Space. Here is a popular
scientific diagram, a weather record. This line I trace with my
finger shows the movement of the barometer. Yesterday it was so
high, yesterday night it fell, then this morning it rose again,
The Time Machine |
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: last, nor to any of them, while the process of becoming is going on?
True.
Then the one is of the same age with all the others, so that if the one
itself does not contradict its own nature, it will be neither prior nor
posterior to the others, but simultaneous; and according to this argument
the one will be neither older nor younger than the others, nor the others
than the one, but according to the previous argument the one will be older
and younger than the others and the others than the one.
Certainly.
After this manner then the one is and has become. But as to its becoming
older and younger than the others, and the others than the one, and neither
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