| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: and have never spoken with him: and you call him a Sophist, but are
manifestly ignorant of what a Sophist is; and yet you are going to commit
yourself to his keeping.
When he heard me say this, he replied: No other inference, Socrates, can
be drawn from your words.
I proceeded: Is not a Sophist, Hippocrates, one who deals wholesale or
retail in the food of the soul? To me that appears to be his nature.
And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul?
Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul; and we must take care,
my friend, that the Sophist does not deceive us when he praises what he
sells, like the dealers wholesale or retail who sell the food of the body;
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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 Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: "He admits that he had the bag," somebody said behind me. "How did
you guess that he wore glasses, anyhow?" to the amateur sleuth.
That gentleman cleared his throat. "There were two reasons," he
said, "for suspecting it. When you see a man with the lines of his
face drooping, a healthy individual with a pensive eye, - suspect
astigmatism. Besides, this gentleman has a pronounced line across
the bridge of his nose and a mark on his ear from the chain."
After this remarkable exhibition of the theoretical as combined with
the practical, he sank into a seat near-by, and still holding the
chain, sat with closed eyes and pursed lips. It was evident to all
the car that the solution of the mystery was a question of moments.
The Man in Lower Ten |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: "From what?" asked Madame de Montcornet.
"From the fate which overtakes nearly all the girls of her age in
these parts. Since I have taught her cleanliness she is much less ugly
than she was; in fact, there is something odd and wild about her which
attracts men. She is so changed that you would hardly recognize her.
The son of that infamous innkeeper of the Grand-I-Vert, Nicolas, the
worst fellow in the whole district, wants her; he hunts her like game.
Though I can't believe that Monsieur Rigou, who changes his servant-
girls every year or two is persecuting such a little fright, it is
quite certain that Nicolas Tonsard is. Justin told me so. It would be
a dreadful fate, for the people of this valley actually live like
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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 Poems by Oscar Wilde: But when o'er wastes of lily-haunted field
The tired birds had stayed their amorous tune,
And broad and glittering like an argent shield
High in the sapphire heavens hung the moon,
Did no strange dream or evil memory make
Each tremulous petal of its blossoms shake?
Ah no! to this bright flower a thousand years
Seemed but the lingering of a summer's day,
It never knew the tide of cankering fears
Which turn a boy's gold hair to withered grey,
The dread desire of death it never knew,
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