| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: in anything. (Compare Gorgias.)
SOCRATES: What an ornament, Hippias, will the reputation of your wisdom be
to the city of Elis and to your parents! But to return: what say you of
Odysseus and Achilles? Which is the better of the two? and in what
particular does either surpass the other? For when you were exhibiting and
there was company in the room, though I could not follow you, I did not
like to ask what you meant, because a crowd of people were present, and I
was afraid that the question might interrupt your exhibition. But now that
there are not so many of us, and my friend Eudicus bids me ask, I wish you
would tell me what you were saying about these two heroes, so that I may
clearly understand; how did you distinguish them?
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw: marry was the man you were in love with, because it would make a
perfect slave of you. Theres a sort of instinct against it, I think,
thats just as strong as the other instinct. One of them, to my
certain knowledge, refused a man she was in love with, and married
another who was in love with her; and it turned out very well.
MRS TARLETON. Does all that mean that youre not in love with Bunny?
HYPATIA. Oh, how could anybody be in love with Bunny? I like him to
kiss me just as I like a baby to kiss me. I'm fond of him; and he
never bores me; and I see that hes very clever; but I'm not what you
call gone about him, if thats what you mean.
MRS TARLETON. Then why need you marry him?
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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 Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: of unprecedented prosperity. Spite of the eloquence of the earnest
Abolitionists,--poured out against slavery during thirty years,--
even they must confess, that, in all the probabilities of the case,
that system of barbarism would have continued its horrors far beyond
the limits of the nineteenth century but for the Rebellion,
and perhaps only have disappeared at last in a fiery conflict,
even more fierce and bloody than that which has now been suppressed.
It is no disparagement to truth, that it can only prevail
where reason prevails. War begins where reason ends.
The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.
What that thing is, we have been taught to our cost. It remains now
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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 Royalty Restored/London Under Charles II by J. Fitzgerald Molloy: The next victim was Coleman. He denied having hired assassins to
murder his majesty, or entertained desires for his death; but
honestly stated he had striven to advance his religion, not by
bloodshed, but by tolerance. Whilst lying in chains at Newgate
prison under sentence of death members of both Houses of
Parliament visited him, and offered him pardon if he confessed a
knowledge of the plot; but, in answer to all persuasions and
promises, he avowed his innocence; protesting which, he died at
Tyburn.
A little later, three Jesuits, named Ireland, Whitehead, and
Fenwick, and two attendants of the queen's chapel, named Grove
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