| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw: LORD SUMMERHAYS. And all the women have been kissing you and pitying
you ever since to stop your crying, I suppose. Baby!
BENTLEY. I did cry. But I always feel good after crying: it
relieves my wretched nerves. I feel perfectly jolly now.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Not at all ashamed of yourself, for instance?
BENTLEY. If I started being ashamed of myself I shouldnt have time
for anything else all my life. I say: I feel very fit and spry.
Lets all go down and meet the Grand Cham. _[He goes to the hatstand
and takes down his hat]._
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Does Mr Tarleton like to be called the Grand Cham,
do you think, Bentley?
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our
respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall
between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of
the presence and beyond the reach of each other; but the different
parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain
face to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile,
must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make
that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after
separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than
friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced
between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war,
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: for saying, as a physician, that drinking deep is a bad practice, which I
never follow, if I can help, and certainly do not recommend to another,
least of all to any one who still feels the effects of yesterday's carouse.
I always do what you advise, and especially what you prescribe as a
physician, rejoined Phaedrus the Myrrhinusian, and the rest of the company,
if they are wise, will do the same.
It was agreed that drinking was not to be the order of the day, but that
they were all to drink only so much as they pleased.
Then, said Eryximachus, as you are all agreed that drinking is to be
voluntary, and that there is to be no compulsion, I move, in the next
place, that the flute-girl, who has just made her appearance, be told to go
|
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 American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: interested? Again and again did California and I prance down
that reach to the little bay, each with a salmon in tow, and land
him in the shallows. Then Portland took my rod and caught some
ten-pounders, and my spoon was carried away by an unknown
leviathan. Each fish, for the merits of the three that had died
so gamely, was hastily hooked on the balance and flung back.
Portland recorded the weight in a pocket-book, for he was a
real-estate man. Each fish fought for all he was worth, and none
more savagely than the smallest, a game little six-pounder. At
the end of six hours we added up the list. Read it. Total:
Sixteen fish; aggregate weight, one hundred and forty pounds.
|
