| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: use. The scene to him was not the material environment of his
person, but a tragic vision that travelled with him like an
envelope. Through this vision the incidents of the moment but
gleamed confusedly here and there, as an outer landscape through
the high-colored scenes of a stained window. He waited thus an
hour, an hour and a half, two hours. He began to look pale and
ill, whereupon the butler, who came in, asked him to have a glass
of wine. Melbury roused himself and said, "No, no. Is she almost
ready?"
"She is just finishing breakfast," said the butler. "She will
soon see you now. I am just going up to tell her you are here."
The Woodlanders |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from King Lear by William Shakespeare: How now? Where's the King?
Osw. My Lord of Gloucester hath convey'd him hence.
Some five or six and thirty of his knights,
Hot questrists after him, met him at gate;
Who, with some other of the lord's dependants,
Are gone with him towards Dover, where they boast
To have well-armed friends.
Corn. Get horses for your mistress.
Gon. Farewell, sweet lord, and sister.
Corn. Edmund, farewell.
Exeunt Goneril, [Edmund, and Oswald].
King Lear |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: resemblances to the male or female form, or some analogy too subtle to be
discovered. When the gender of any object was once fixed, a similar gender
was naturally assigned to similar objects, or to words of similar
formation. This use of genders in the denotation of objects or ideas not
only affects the words to which genders are attributed, but the words with
which they are construed or connected, and passes into the general
character of the style. Hence arises a difficulty in translating Greek
into English which cannot altogether be overcome. Shall we speak of the
soul and its qualities, of virtue, power, wisdom, and the like, as feminine
or neuter? The usage of the English language does not admit of the former,
and yet the life and beauty of the style are impaired by the latter. Often
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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 Lesser Hippias by Plato: things of various kinds about Homer and divers other poets.
EUDICUS: I am sure that Hippias will be delighted to answer anything which
you would like to ask; tell me, Hippias, if Socrates asks you a question,
will you answer him?
HIPPIAS: Indeed, Eudicus, I should be strangely inconsistent if I refused
to answer Socrates, when at each Olympic festival, as I went up from my
house at Elis to the temple of Olympia, where all the Hellenes were
assembled, I continually professed my willingness to perform any of the
exhibitions which I had prepared, and to answer any questions which any one
had to ask.
SOCRATES: Truly, Hippias, you are to be congratulated, if at every Olympic
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