| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bab:A Sub-Deb, Mary Roberts Rinehart by Mary Roberts Rinehart: To resume. All the Pattens went in, and a new girl with them, in a
One-peace Suit. I do not deny that she was pretty. I only say that she
was not modest, and that the way she stood on the Patten's dock and
pozed for Mr. Beecher's benafit was unecessary and well, not respectable.
She was nothing to me, nor I to her. But I watched her closely. I
confess that I was interested in Mr. Beecher. Why not? He was a
Public Character, and entitled to respect. Nay, even to love. But
I maintain and will to my dying day, that such love is diferent from
that ordinaraly born to the Other Sex, and a thing to be proud of.
Well, I was seeing a drama and did not even know it. After the rest
had gone, Mr. Patten came to the door into Mr. Beecher's room in
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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 Turn of the Screw by Henry James: sank upon the edge of the bed from the force of the idea
that he must know how he really, as they say, "had" me.
He could do what he liked, with all his cleverness to help him,
so long as I should continue to defer to the old tradition
of the criminality of those caretakers of the young who
minister to superstitions and fears. He "had" me indeed,
and in a cleft stick; for who would ever absolve me, who would
consent that I should go unhung, if, by the faintest tremor
of an overture, I were the first to introduce into our perfect
intercourse an element so dire? No, no: it was useless
to attempt to convey to Mrs. Grose, just as it is scarcely
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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 The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy: moment, in a sort of ecstasy, and it tore my heart as I connected
it with the musician and my wife. Yes, it was very long ago.
The brother of Troukhatchevsky, answering my questions as to
whether he frequented disreputable houses, said that a
respectable man does not go where he may contract a disease, in a
low and unclean spot, when one can find an honest woman. And
here he, his brother, the musician, had found the honest woman.
'It is true that she is no longer in her early youth. She has
lost a tooth on one side, and her face is slightly bloated,'
thought I for Troukhatchevsky. 'But what is to be done? One
must profit by what one has.'
The Kreutzer Sonata |
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: SOCRATES: And in general, all that the soul attempts or endures, when
under the guidance of wisdom, ends in happiness; but when she is under the
guidance of folly, in the opposite?
MENO: That appears to be true.
SOCRATES: If then virtue is a quality of the soul, and is admitted to be
profitable, it must be wisdom or prudence, since none of the things of the
soul are either profitable or hurtful in themselves, but they are all made
profitable or hurtful by the addition of wisdom or of folly; and therefore
if virtue is profitable, virtue must be a sort of wisdom or prudence?
MENO: I quite agree.
SOCRATES: And the other goods, such as wealth and the like, of which we
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