| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: converted into despair, he has two pains and not a balance of pain and
pleasure.) Another question is raised: May not pleasures, like opinions,
be true and false? In the sense of being real, both must be admitted to be
true: nor can we deny that to both of them qualities may be attributed;
for pleasures as well as opinions may be described as good or bad. And
though we do not all of us allow that there are true and false pleasures,
we all acknowledge that there are some pleasures associated with right
opinion, and others with falsehood and ignorance. Let us endeavour to
analyze the nature of this association.
Opinion is based on perception, which may be correct or mistaken. You may
see a figure at a distance, and say first of all, 'This is a man,' and then
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: before their envious gaze this wondrous finery.
Taking the body across his shoulder, he moved more
slowly through the trees toward the little palisaded village,
for he again needed arrows.
As he approached quite close to the enclosure he saw an
excited group surrounding the two fugitives, who, trembling
with fright and exhaustion, were scarce able to recount the
uncanny details of their adventure.
Mirando, they said, who had been ahead of them a short
distance, had suddenly come screaming toward them, crying
that a terrible white and naked warrior was pursuing him.
Tarzan of the Apes |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: remarked: ``No; they ain't never been to school, nor me nor their
poppy, nor their granddads and grandmoms. We've always been
pickers!''--and she spat her tobacco over the field in expert fashion.
``In the Valley one hears from townspeople,'' writes the
investigator, ``that pickers make ten dollars a day, working the whole
family. With that qualification, the statement is ambiguous. One
Mexican in the Imperial Valley was the father of thirty-three
children--`about thirteen or fourteen living,' he said. If they all
worked at cotton-picking, they would doubtless altogether make more
than ten dollars a day.''
One of the child laborers revealed the economic advantage--to 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 Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: not but reflect, 'here is another link in the Judicial
Error.'
The driver, on the other hand, was pleased to drop again upon
so liberal a fare; and as he was a man - the reader must
already have perceived - of easy, not to say familiar,
manners, he dropped at once into a vein of friendly talk,
commenting on the weather, on the sacred season, which struck
him chiefly in the light of a day of liberal gratuities, on
the chance which had reunited him to a pleasing customer, and
on the fact that John had been (as he was pleased to call it)
visibly 'on the randan' the night before.
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