| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: Well, and in discussions about the wholesomeness of food, when
many persons are speaking, and one speaks better than the rest, will he who
recognizes the better speaker be a different person from him who recognizes
the worse, or the same?
ION: Clearly the same.
SOCRATES: And who is he, and what is his name?
ION: The physician.
SOCRATES: And speaking generally, in all discussions in which the subject
is the same and many men are speaking, will not he who knows the good know
the bad speaker also? For if he does not know the bad, neither will he
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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 Recruit by Honore de Balzac: court held firmly to the theory of a Chouan leader or a body of
Vendeans hotly pursued. Others were convinced that the person thus
harbored was a noble escaped from the Paris prisons. In short, they
all suspected the countess of being guilty of one of those
generosities, which the laws of the day called crimes, and punished on
the scaffold. The public prosecutor remarked in a low voice that it
would be best to say no more, but to do their best to save the poor
woman from the abyss toward which she was hurrying.
"If you talk about this affair," he said, "I shall be obliged to take
notice of it, and search her house, and THEN--"
He said no more, but all present understood what he meant.
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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 Rivers to the Sea by Sara Teasdale: Swift and intent, asking no joy from another,
Glad to forget all of the passion of April
Ere it was love-free.
I am free of love, and I listen to music lightly,
But if he returned, if he should look at me deeply,
I should awake, I should awake and remember
I am my lover's.
SUMMER NIGHT, RIVERSIDE
IN the wild soft summer darkness
How many and many a night we two together
Sat in the park and watched the Hudson
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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 Mountains by Stewart Edward White: sheet-iron pails to nest in one another was what we
carried on this trip. You see, we had horses. Of course
in the woods that outfit would be materially reduced.
For the same reason, since we had our carrying
done for us, we took along two flat iron bars about
twenty-four inches in length. These, laid across two
stones between which the fire had been built, we
used to support our cooking-utensils stove-wise. I
should never carry a stove. This arrangement is
quite as effective, and possesses the added advantage
that wood does not have to be cut for it of any
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