| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from 1492 by Mary Johntson: that away. The Adelantado procured him a mule, and with
his sons and brother and a small train beside he started,
the King being at Segovia. He had a hardly scraped together
purse of gold, and all his matters seemed dejected.
Yet his family riding with him rode as nobles of Spain,
and his son, Don Diego, should one day become Governor
of Hispaniola. Earthly speaking, for all his feeling ``All
is vain!'' he had made his family. Unlike many families
so made, this one was grateful.
On the road to Segovia, stayings, restings and meetings
were cordial enough to him, for here flocked the people to
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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 Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: sufficient motives of instigation. Supposing it were judged
advisable to remove Miss Vere to some place in which constraint
might be exercised upon her inclinations to a degree which cannot
at present be attempted under the roof of Ellieslaw Castle--What
says Sir Frederick Langley to that supposition?"
"I say," returned Sir Frederick, "that although Mr. Vere may
choose to endure in Mr. Ratcliffe freedoms totally inconsistent
with his situation in life, I will not permit such license of
innuendo, by word or look, to be extended to me, with impunity."
"And I say," said young Mareschal of Mareschal-Wells, who was
also a guest at the castle, "that you are all stark mad to be
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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 Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: ears three days before from the sea-fishermen and through the
dwellers on the lower reaches of the river. It had been passed
up-stream from neighbour to neighbour till Bulangi, whose
clearing was nearest to the settlement, had brought that news
himself to Abdulla whose favour he courted. But rumour also
spoke of a fight and of Dain's death on board his own vessel.
And now all the settlement talked of Dain's visit to the Rajah
and of his death when crossing the river in the dark to see
Almayer.
They could not understand this. Reshid thought that it was very
strange. He felt uneasy and doubtful. But Abdulla, after the
Almayer's Folly |
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 Meno by Plato: science. This is a true fact of psychology, which is recognized by Plato
in this passage. But he is far from saying, as some have imagined, that
inspiration or divine grace is to be regarded as higher than knowledge. He
would not have preferred the poet or man of action to the philosopher, or
the virtue of custom to the virtue based upon ideas.
Also here, as in the Ion and Phaedrus, Plato appears to acknowledge an
unreasoning element in the higher nature of man. The philosopher only has
knowledge, and yet the statesman and the poet are inspired. There may be a
sort of irony in regarding in this way the gifts of genius. But there is
no reason to suppose that he is deriding them, any more than he is deriding
the phenomena of love or of enthusiasm in the Symposium, or of oracles in
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