| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: pomp, he plucked a polyanthus and presented it to me, as one
conferring a prodigious favour. I observed, on the grass about his
garden, certain apparatus of sticks and corn, and asked what they
were.
'Traps for birds.'
'Why do you catch them?'
'Papa says they do harm.'
'And what do you do with them when you catch them?'
'Different things. Sometimes I give them to the cat; sometimes I
cut them in pieces with my penknife; but the next, I mean to roast
alive.'
Agnes Grey |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: now--almost. He glanced at her. She was riding with her eyes
straight ahead of her. Thinking. A little perplexed, perhaps, she
seemed. He noticed how well she rode and that she rode with her
lips closed--a thing he could never manage.
Mr. Hoopdriver's mind came round to the future. What was she
going to do? What were they both going to do? His thoughts took a
graver colour. He had rescued her. This was fine, manly rescue
work he was engaged upon. She ought to go home, in spite of that
stepmother. He must insist gravely but firmly upon that. She was
the spirited sort, of course, but still--Wonder if she had any
money? Wonder what the second-class fare from Havant to London
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Youth by Joseph Conrad: remarked, 'I think we have done very well, haven't we?'
and then I perceived with annoyance the fool was try-
ing to tilt the bench. I said curtly, 'Don't, Chips,' and
immediately became aware of a queer sensation, of an
absurd delusion,--I seemed somehow to be in the air. I
heard all round me like a pent-up breath released--as
if a thousand giants simultaneously had said Phoo!--
and felt a dull concussion which made my ribs ache sud-
denly. No doubt about it--I was in the air, and my
body was describing a short parabola. But short as it
was, I had the time to think several thoughts in, as far
Youth |
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 Lysis by Plato: whom we come into contact, and, perhaps in a few passionate and exalted
natures, all men everywhere? 7) The ancients had their three kinds of
friendship, 'for the sake of the pleasant, the useful, and the good:' is
the last to be resolved into the two first; or are the two first to be
included in the last? The subject was puzzling to them: they could not
say that friendship was only a quality, or a relation, or a virtue, or a
kind of virtue; and they had not in the age of Plato reached the point of
regarding it, like justice, as a form or attribute of virtue. They had
another perplexity: 8) How could one of the noblest feelings of human
nature be so near to one of the most detestable corruptions of it?
(Compare Symposium; Laws).
Lysis |
