| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James: men with foreign titles and English clothes whom Morgan called the
princes and who, on sofas with the girls, talked French very loud -
though sometimes with some oddity of accent - as if to show they
were saying nothing improper. Pemberton wondered how the princes
could ever propose in that tone and so publicly: he took for
granted cynically that this was what was desired of them. Then he
recognised that even for the chance of such an advantage Mrs.
Moreen would never allow Paula and Amy to receive alone. These
young ladies were not at all timid, but it was just the safeguards
that made them so candidly free. It was a houseful of Bohemians
who wanted tremendously to be Philistines.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: their drawing-rooms, he will never go there! He never shows
himself anywhere, not even in the streets! But there is one class
that elects the deputies--the commercial class. I am going
especially to study commercial questions, with which I am already
familiar; I will gain their lawsuits, I will effect compromises, I
will be the greatest pleader in Besancon. By and by I will start a
/Review/, in which I will defend the interests of the country,
will create them, or preserve them, or resuscitate them. When I
shall have won a sufficient number of votes, my name will come out
of the urn. For a long time the unknown barrister will be treated
with contempt, but some circumstance will arise to bring him to
Albert Savarus |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: certain opinion;'--he who knows all this, and knows also when he should
speak and when he should refrain, and when he should use pithy sayings,
pathetic appeals, sensational effects, and all the other modes of speech
which he has learned;--when, I say, he knows the times and seasons of all
these things, then, and not till then, he is a perfect master of his art;
but if he fail in any of these points, whether in speaking or teaching or
writing them, and yet declares that he speaks by rules of art, he who says
'I don't believe you' has the better of him. Well, the teacher will say,
is this, Phaedrus and Socrates, your account of the so-called art of
rhetoric, or am I to look for another?
PHAEDRUS: He must take this, Socrates, for there is no possibility of
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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 The Reef by Edith Wharton: irritation at the trifling blunder. When he had corrected
it he went back to his chair and threw himself down, leaning
back his head against his hands. Presently his cigar went
out, and he got up, hunted for the matches, lit it again and
returned to his seat.
The room was getting on his nerves. During the first few
days, while the skies were clear, he had not noticed it, or
had felt for it only the contemptuous indifference of the
traveller toward a provisional shelter. But now that he was
leaving it, was looking at it for the last time, it seemed
to have taken complete possession of his mind, to be soaking
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