| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Ambrose looked and listened obediently enough, but inwardly
she was prey to an uneasy mood not readily to be ascribed to any
one cause. Looking on shore as Mr. Flushing bade her, she thought
the country very beautiful, but also sultry and alarming.
She did not like to feel herself the victim of unclassified emotions,
and certainly as the launch slipped on and on, in the hot morning sun,
she felt herself unreasonably moved. Whether the unfamiliarity
of the forest was the cause of it, or something less definite,
she could not determine. Her mind left the scene and occupied itself
with anxieties for Ridley, for her children, for far-off things,
such as old age and poverty and death. Hirst, too, was depressed.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: matter.
LYSIMACHUS: I am going to ask this favour of you, Socrates; as is the more
necessary because the two councillors disagree, and some one is in a manner
still needed who will decide between them. Had they agreed, no arbiter
would have been required. But as Laches has voted one way and Nicias
another, I should like to hear with which of our two friends you agree.
SOCRATES: What, Lysimachus, are you going to accept the opinion of the
majority?
LYSIMACHUS: Why, yes, Socrates; what else am I to do?
SOCRATES: And would you do so too, Melesias? If you were deliberating
about the gymnastic training of your son, would you follow the advice 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 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: with great violence. During his sister's hasty manoeuvres, he was
dragged by the arm.
Finally the procession plunged into one of the gruesome doorways.
They crawled up dark stairways and along cold, gloomy halls.
At last the father pushed open a door and they entered a lighted room
in which a large woman was rampant.
She stopped in a career from a seething stove to a pan-covered table.
As the father and children filed in she peered at them.
"Eh, what? Been fightin' agin, by Gawd!" She threw herself
upon Jimmie. The urchin tried to dart behind the others and in the
scuffle the babe, Tommie, was knocked down. He protested with his
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
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 Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: quality in all these things which when it meets my perceptions compels
me to see differences?"
The tutor surveyed his notes. "I can discover no such suggestions here
as you are pleased to make" said he. "But your orriginal researches,"
he continued most obsequiously, "recall our next subject,--Berkeley and
the Idealists." And he smoothed out his notes.
"Let's see," said the second boy, pondering; "I went to two or three
lectures about that time. Berkeley--Berkeley. Didn't he--oh, yes! he
did. He went the whole hog. Nothing's anywhere except in your ideas.
You think the table's there, but it isn't. There isn't any table."
The first boy slapped his leg and lighted a cigarette. "I remember,"
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