| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: The second case was, that I, knowing one of you and not knowing
the other, and perceiving neither, can never think him whom I know to be
him whom I do not know.
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: In the third case, not knowing and not perceiving either of you,
I cannot think that one of you whom I do not know is the other whom I do
not know. I need not again go over the catalogue of excluded cases, in
which I cannot form a false opinion about you and Theodorus, either when I
know both or when I am in ignorance of both, or when I know one and not the
other. And the same of perceiving: do you understand me?
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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 Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: murderous contrivances!
It is strange: he was the only man I ever loved who did not
habitually interrupt. The fact draws my own portrait. And it is
one of the many reasons why I count myself honoured by his
friendship. A man like you HAD to like me; you could not help
yourself; but Ferrier was above me, we were not equals; his true
self humoured and smiled paternally upon my failings, even as I
humoured and sorrowed over his.
Well, first his mother, then himself, they are gone: 'in their
resting graves.'
When I come to think of it, I do not know what I said to his
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