| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: wonder how many men there are who would give up everything that is dear in
life for the sake of maintaining a high ideal purity."
She laughed a little laugh that was clear without being pleasant.
"And then, when they have no other argument against us, they say, 'Go on;
but when you have made woman what you wish, and her children inherit her
culture, you will defeat yourself. Man will gradually become extinct from
excess of intellect, the passions which replenish the race will die.'
Fools!" she said, curling her pretty lip. "A Hottentot sits at the
roadside and feeds on a rotten bone he has found there, and takes out his
bottle of Cape-smoke and swills at it, and grunts with satisfaction; and
the cultured child of the nineteenth century sits in his armchair, and sips
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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 Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: room; he flung it open, and stood in a coaxing attitude. Try how
she would, Grace could not resist the supplicatory mandate written
in the face and manner of this man, and distressful resignation
sat on her as she glided past him into the room--brushing his coat
with her elbow by reason of the narrowness.
He followed her, shut the door--which she somehow had hoped he
would leave open--and placing a chair for her, sat down. The
concern which Grace felt at the development of these commonplace
incidents was, of course, mainly owing to the strange effect upon
her nerves of that view of him in the mirror gazing at her with
open eyes when she had thought him sleeping, which made her fancy
The Woodlanders |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: them. Some difference of style, or inferiority of execution, or
inconsistency of thought, can hardly be considered decisive of their
spurious character. For who always does justice to himself, or who writes
with equal care at all times? Certainly not Plato, who exhibits the
greatest differences in dramatic power, in the formation of sentences, and
in the use of words, if his earlier writings are compared with his later
ones, say the Protagoras or Phaedrus with the Laws. Or who can be expected
to think in the same manner during a period of authorship extending over
above fifty years, in an age of great intellectual activity, as well as of
political and literary transition? Certainly not Plato, whose earlier
writings are separated from his later ones by as wide an interval 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 Lysis by Plato: who is the favourite among you?
Some persons have one favourite, Socrates, and some another, he said.
And who is yours? I asked: tell me that, Hippothales.
At this he blushed; and I said to him, O Hippothales, thou son of
Hieronymus! do not say that you are, or that you are not, in love; the
confession is too late; for I see that you are not only in love, but are
already far gone in your love. Simple and foolish as I am, the Gods have
given me the power of understanding affections of this kind.
Whereupon he blushed more and more.
Ctesippus said: I like to see you blushing, Hippothales, and hesitating to
tell Socrates the name; when, if he were with you but for a very short
Lysis |
