| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: you, is the science of itself. Admitting this view, I ask of you, what
good work, worthy of the name wise, does temperance or wisdom, which is the
science of itself, effect? Answer me.
That is not the true way of pursuing the enquiry, Socrates, he said; for
wisdom is not like the other sciences, any more than they are like one
another: but you proceed as if they were alike. For tell me, he said,
what result is there of computation or geometry, in the same sense as a
house is the result of building, or a garment of weaving, or any other work
of any other art? Can you show me any such result of them? You cannot.
That is true, I said; but still each of these sciences has a subject which
is different from the science. I can show you that the art of computation
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: I pressed my lips to his once brilliant and now rayless eyes--I
swept his hair from his brow, and kissed that too. He suddenly
seemed to arouse himself: the conviction of the reality of all this
seized him.
"It is you--is it, Jane? You are come back to me then?"
"I am."
"And you do not lie dead in some ditch under some stream? And you
are not a pining outcast amongst strangers?"
"No, sir! I am an independent woman now."
"Independent! What do you mean, Jane?"
"My uncle in Madeira is dead, and he left me five thousand pounds."
Jane Eyre |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: those about her were her inferiors, or persons who hastened to do her
bidding, till she grew to be as haughty as a great lady, with none of
the charming blandness and urbanity of a great lady. The instincts of
vanity were flattered by the pride that the poor Abbe took in his
pupil, the pride of an author who sees himself in his work, and for
her misfortune she met no one with whom she could measure herself.
Isolation is one of the greatest drawbacks of a country life. We lose
the habit of putting ourselves to any inconvenience for the sake of
others when there is no one for whom to make the trifling sacrifices
of personal effort required by dress and manner. And everything in us
shares in the change for the worse; the form and the spirit
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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 Economist by Xenophon: proved the best of rulers, and in support of this belief, apart from
other testimony amply furnished by his life, witness what happened
when he marched to do battle for the soveriegnty of Persia with his
brother. Not one man, it is said,[12] deserted from Cyrus to the king,
but from the king to Cyrus tens of thousands. And this also I deem a
great testimony to a ruler's worth, that his followers follow him of
their own free will, and when the moment of danger comes refuse to
part from him.[13] Now this was the case with Cyrus. His friends not
only fought their battles side by side with him while he lived, but
when he died they too died battling around his dead body, one and all,
excepting only Ariaeus, who was absent at his post on the left wing of
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