| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: and limitlessly our own, and the character has been so sifted and
tried that we fear not to entrust it with the happiness of our
lives. Do you not see how ignoble this is, as well as how
unreasonable? Do you not feel that marriage,--when it is marriage
at all,--is only the seal which marks the vowed transition of
temporary into untiring service, and of fitful into eternal love?
But how, you will ask, is the idea of this guiding function of the
woman reconcilable with a true wifely subjection? Simply in that it
is a GUIDING, not a determining, function. Let me try to show you
briefly how these powers seem to be rightly distinguishable.
We are foolish, and without excuse foolish, in speaking of the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: not assured him of the fact, for two reasons: (1) Because the Athenian
people, who recognize in their assemblies the distinction between the
skilled and the unskilled in the arts, do not distinguish between the
trained politician and the untrained; (2) Because the wisest and best
Athenian citizens do not teach their sons political virtue. Will
Protagoras answer these objections?
Protagoras explains his views in the form of an apologue, in which, after
Prometheus had given men the arts, Zeus is represented as sending Hermes to
them, bearing with him Justice and Reverence. These are not, like the
arts, to be imparted to a few only, but all men are to be partakers of
them. Therefore the Athenian people are right in distinguishing between
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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 Pathology of Lying, Etc. by William and Mary Healy: lying. Swindling itself could hardly be called a pathological
phenomenon, since it is readily explicable by the fact that it is
entered into for reasons of tangible gain, but when it is the
product of the traits shown by a pathological liar it, just as
the lying itself, is a part of the pathological picture. It is
the most concrete expression of the individual's tendencies.
This has been agreed to by several writers, for all have found it
easy to trace the development of one form of behavior into the
other. As Wulffen says, ``Die Gabe zu Schwindeln ist eine `Lust
am Fabulieren.' '' Over and over again we have observed the
phenomenon as the pathological liar gradually developed the
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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 Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: each other almost every evening in society, and she wrote to me every
day, to deceive the curious and mislead the observant we had adopted a
scheme of conduct: never to look at each other; to avoid meeting; to
speak ill of each other. Self-admiration, swagger, or playing the
disdained swain,--all these old manoeuvres are not to compare on
either part with a false passion professed for an indifferent person
and an air of indifference towards the true idol. If two lovers will
only play that game, the world will always be deceived; but then they
must be very secure of each other.
"Her stalking-horse was a man in high favor, a courtier, cold and
sanctimonious, whom she never received at her own house. This little
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