| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: your prodigious wisdom--how can I say that I know such things, Euthydemus,
as that the good are unjust; come, do I know that or not?
Certainly, you know that.
What do I know?
That the good are not unjust.
Quite true, I said; and that I have always known; but the question is,
where did I learn that the good are unjust?
Nowhere, said Dionysodorus.
Then, I said, I do not know this.
You are ruining the argument, said Euthydemus to Dionysodorus; he will be
proved not to know, and then after all he will be knowing and not knowing
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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 Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: luxuriant vegetation of which indicated it to be watered either by some
subterranean marsh or by some stream. However, Cyrus Harding did not
remember having seen, at the time of his excursion to the crater, any other
watercourses but the Red Creek and the Mercy.
During the first part of their excursion, they saw numerous troops of
monkeys who exhibited great astonishment at the sight of men, whose
appearance was so new to them. Gideon Spilett jokingly asked whether these
active and merry quadrupeds did not consider him and his companions as
degenerate brothers.
And certainly, pedestrians, hindered at each step by bushes, caught by
creepers, barred by trunks of trees, did not shine beside those supple
 The Mysterious Island |