| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: You think, I said, that to act with a wise man is more fortunate than to
act with an ignorant one?
He assented.
Then wisdom always makes men fortunate: for by wisdom no man would ever
err, and therefore he must act rightly and succeed, or his wisdom would be
wisdom no longer.
We contrived at last, somehow or other, to agree in a general conclusion,
that he who had wisdom had no need of fortune. I then recalled to his mind
the previous state of the question. You remember, I said, our making the
admission that we should be happy and fortunate if many good things were
present with us?
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Frances Waldeaux by Rebecca Davis: met Mrs. Waldeaux and saw her face. They huddled to
one side, crossing themselves, and when she passed, stood
still, forgetting the mass and looking, frightened, up
the steep street behind her to find what horror had
pursued her.
"They know what I have done," she said aloud.
Once when she was a child she had accidentally seen a
bloated wretch, a murderer, on his way to the gallows.
"I am he," she thought. "I--_I_, Frances."
Then the gargoyle came into her mind again. What a
capital headpiece it would make for "Quigg's" next
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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 Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: fail to inhibit the friendlier interests aroused? If positive
well-wishing could attain so supreme a degree of excitement,
those who were swayed by it might well seem superhuman beings.
Their life would be morally discrete from the life of other men,
and there is no saying, in the absence of positive experience of
an authentic kind--for there are few active examples in our
scriptures, and the Buddhistic examples are legendary,[168]--what
the effects might be: they might conceivably transform the
world.
[168] As where the future Buddha, incarnated as a hare, jumps
into the fire to cook himself for a meal for a beggar--having
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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 Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling: would leave you in peace while you considered. Time is
what we need - you and I and Maximus. Let me carry a
pleasant message back to the Winged Hats - something
for them to make a council over. We barbarians are all
alike. We sit up half the night to discuss anything a
Roman says. Eh?"
"'We have no men. We must fight with words," said
Pertinax. "Leave it to Allo and me."
'So Allo carried word back to the Winged Hats that we
would not fight them if they did not fight us; and they (I
think they were a little tired of losing men in the sea)
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