| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: is not set aside.
MENO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Now, if there be any sort of good which is distinct from
knowledge, virtue may be that good; but if knowledge embraces all good,
then we shall be right in thinking that virtue is knowledge?
MENO: True.
SOCRATES: And virtue makes us good?
MENO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And if we are good, then we are profitable; for all good things
are profitable?
MENO: Yes.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Summer by Edith Wharton: out everything. In a flash they had shown her the bare
reality of her situation. Behind the frail screen of
her lover's caresses was the whole inscrutable mystery
of his life: his relations with other people--with
other women--his opinions, his prejudices, his
principles, the net of influences and interests and
ambitions in which every man's life is entangled. Of
all these she knew nothing, except what he had told her
of his architectural aspirations. She had always dimly
guessed him to be in touch with important people,
involved in complicated relations--but she felt it all
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs: two and three of the slaves, there were only a score
of full-grown men left, and I thought that for some reason
these were to be spared, but such was far from the case,
for as the last Mahar crawled to her rock the queen's thipdars
darted into the air, circled the temple once and then,
hissing like steam engines, swooped down upon the remaining slaves.
There was no hypnotism here--just the plain, brutal ferocity
of the beast of prey, tearing, rending, and gulping its meat,
but at that it was less horrible than the uncanny method of
the Mahars. By the time the thipdars had disposed of the last
of the slaves the Mahars were all asleep upon their rocks,
At the Earth's Core |
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 Persuasion by Jane Austen: were no more; and that they were succeeded, not merely by friendship
and regard, but by the tenderness of the past. Yes, some share of
the tenderness of the past. She could not contemplate the change
as implying less. He must love her.
These were thoughts, with their attendant visions, which occupied
and flurried her too much to leave her any power of observation;
and she passed along the room without having a glimpse of him,
without even trying to discern him. When their places were determined on,
and they were all properly arranged, she looked round to see
if he should happen to be in the same part of the room, but he was not;
her eye could not reach him; and the concert being just opening,
Persuasion |
