| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: (Phaedr.), and should be treated with every sort of respect (Republic), but
not allowed to live in a well-ordered state. Like the Statesmen in the
Meno, they have a divine instinct, but they are narrow and confused; they
do not attain to the clearness of ideas, or to the knowledge of poetry or
of any other art as a whole.
In the Protagoras the ancient poets are recognized by Protagoras himself as
the original sophists; and this family resemblance may be traced in the
Ion. The rhapsode belongs to the realm of imitation and of opinion: he
professes to have all knowledge, which is derived by him from Homer, just
as the sophist professes to have all wisdom, which is contained in his art
of rhetoric. Even more than the sophist he is incapable of appreciating
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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 Virginian by Owen Wister: cold white, and Mr. McLean, feeling through his dreams the change
of dawn come over the air, sat up cautiously among the outdoor
slumberers and waked his neighbor.
"Day will be soon," he whispered, "and we must light out of this.
I never suspicioned yu' had that much of the devil in you
before."
"I reckon some of the fellows will act haidstrong," the Virginian
murmured luxuriously, among the warmth of his blankets.
"I tell yu' we must skip," said Lin, for the second time; and he
rubbed the Virginian's black head, which alone was visible.
"Skip, then, you," came muffled from within, "and keep you'self
The Virginian |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: influence that should draw her back into the bondage of
conventional relations. To ward off the peril she had, with an
almost crude precipitancy, revealed her opinions to him. To her
surprise, she found that he shared them. She was attracted by
the frankness of a suitor who, while pressing his suit, admitted
that he did not believe in marriage. Her worst audacities did
not seem to surprise him: he had thought out all that she had
felt, and they had reached the same conclusion. People grew at
varying rates, and the yoke that was an easy fit for the one
might soon become galling to the other. That was what divorce
was for: the readjustment of personal relations. As soon as
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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 The Human Drift by Jack London: cope with these invaders, new invaders continue to arise--new
drifts of hungry life seeking to devour us. And so we are
justified in believing that in the saturated populations of the
future, when life is suffocating in the pressure against
subsistence, that new, and ever new, hosts of destroying micro-
organisms will continue to arise and fling themselves upon earth-
crowded man to give him room. There may even be plagues of
unprecedented ferocity that will depopulate great areas before the
wit of man can overcome them. And this we know: that no matter
how often these invisible hosts may be overcome by man's becoming
immune to them through a cruel and terrible selection, new hosts
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