| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: the first ten steps.
Cornelius was very uneasy about it, but it was after all
only a prelude to greater anxieties.
The flowing day passed without any remarkable incident.
Gryphus made his three visits, and discovered nothing. He
never came at the same hours as he hoped thus to discover
the secrets of the prisoner. Van Baerle, therefore, had
devised a contrivance, a sort of pulley, by means of which
he was able to lower or to raise his jug below the ledge of
tiles and stone before his window. The strings by which this
was effected he had found means to cover with that moss
The Black Tulip |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: too; for in attempting a disenchantment without the
true key, you are liable to err, and turn your hogs into
dogs, and the dogs into cats, the cats into rats, and so
on, and end by reducing your materials to nothing
finally, or to an odorless gas which you can't follow --
which, of course, amounts to the same thing. But
here, by good luck, no one's eyes but mine are under
the enchantment, and so it is of no consequence to
dissolve it. These ladies remain ladies to you, and to
themselves, and to everybody else; and at the same
time they will suffer in no way from my delusion, for
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: to the greater names, such as Plotinus, and would have been more often used
of a professor of philosophy in general than of a maintainer of particular
tenets.
But the real question is, not whether the word 'Sophist' has all these
senses, but whether there is not also a specific bad sense in which the
term is applied to certain contemporaries of Socrates. Would an Athenian,
as Mr. Grote supposes, in the fifth century before Christ, have included
Socrates and Plato, as well as Gorgias and Protagoras, under the specific
class of Sophists? To this question we must answer, No: if ever the term
is applied to Socrates and Plato, either the application is made by an
enemy out of mere spite, or the sense in which it is used is neutral.
|
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 Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: wagon full of goods that he procured at a sale by a /commissionaire/
of the crown. The sale was of the /chateau/ and belongings of a great
lord--I know not his title--who has been banished for conspiracy
against the king. There are some choice firearms in the lot. This
pistol--oh, a weapon fit for a prince!--it shall be only forty francs
to you, friend Mignot--if I lose ten by the sale. But perhaps an
arquebuse--"
"This will do," said David, throwing the money on the counter. "Is it
charged?"
"I will charge it," said Zeigler. "And, for ten francs more, add a
store of powder and ball."
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