| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: of Piriac, to whom Jacques would say nothing. He was shrewd; he knew
his father would not kill him until he had made his confession.
"'Thank you, and excuse us,' said Cambremer to the priest, when he saw
Jacques' obstinacy. 'I wished to give a lesson to my son, and will ask
you to say nothing about it. As for you,' he said to Jacques, 'if you
do not amend, the next offence you commit will be your last; I shall
end it without confession.'
"And he sent him to bed. The lad thought he could still get round his
father. He slept. His father watched. When he saw that his son was
soundly asleep, he covered his mouth with tow, blindfolded him
tightly, bound him hand and foot--'He raged, he wept blood,' my mother
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: for anything, they will--to be sure they will.
'Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have brought you up. Think not of life
and children first, and of justice afterwards, but of justice first, that
you may be justified before the princes of the world below. For neither
will you nor any that belong to you be happier or holier or juster in this
life, or happier in another, if you do as Crito bids. Now you depart in
innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil; a victim, not of the laws,
but of men. But if you go forth, returning evil for evil, and injury for
injury, breaking the covenants and agreements which you have made with us,
and wronging those whom you ought least of all to wrong, that is to say,
yourself, your friends, your country, and us, we shall be angry with you
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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 Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: Tartar invasion, he wrote in his book, "Travelers of great
discretion. Very close as to political matters."
Whilst Alcide Jolivet noted down his impressions thus
minutely, his confrere, in the same train, traveling for the
same object, was devoting himself to the same work of ob-
servation in another compartment. Neither of them had
seen each other that day at the Moscow station, and they
were each ignorant that the other had set out to visit the
scene of the war. Harry Blount, speaking little, but listen-
ing much, had not inspired his companions with the sus-
picions which Alcide Jolivet had aroused. He was not
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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 Apology by Plato: nothing: they knew little or nothing, and imagined that they knew all
things. Thus he had passed his life as a sort of missionary in detecting
the pretended wisdom of mankind; and this occupation had quite absorbed him
and taken him away both from public and private affairs. Young men of the
richer sort had made a pastime of the same pursuit, 'which was not
unamusing.' And hence bitter enmities had arisen; the professors of
knowledge had revenged themselves by calling him a villainous corrupter of
youth, and by repeating the commonplaces about atheism and materialism and
sophistry, which are the stock-accusations against all philosophers when
there is nothing else to be said of them.
The second accusation he meets by interrogating Meletus, who is present and
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