| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: happen to him if he associates with you. I have no more to say.
Protagoras answered: Young man, if you associate with me, on the very
first day you will return home a better man than you came, and better on
the second day than on the first, and better every day than you were on the
day before.
When I heard this, I said: Protagoras, I do not at all wonder at hearing
you say this; even at your age, and with all your wisdom, if any one were
to teach you what you did not know before, you would become better no
doubt: but please to answer in a different way--I will explain how by an
example. Let me suppose that Hippocrates, instead of desiring your
acquaintance, wished to become acquainted with the young man Zeuxippus of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: settled on her face. The poet's marriage had not been a happy one. He
had left his wife, and after some years of a rather reckless
existence, she had died, before her time. This disaster had led to
great irregularities of education, and, indeed, Mrs. Hilbery might be
said to have escaped education altogether. But she had been her
father's companion at the season when he wrote the finest of his
poems. She had sat on his knee in taverns and other haunts of drunken
poets, and it was for her sake, so people said, that he had cured
himself of his dissipation, and become the irreproachable literary
character that the world knows, whose inspiration had deserted him. As
Mrs. Hilbery grew old she thought more and more of the past, and this
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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 The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: the former did not think very highly of such occupation. Muller
laid his hand on the other's shoulder and said gravely: "You wouldn't
care to take service with us? This sort of thing doesn't rate very
high, I know. But I tell you that if we have our hearts in the right
place, and our brains are worth anything, we are of more good to
humanity than many an honest citizen who wouldn't shake hands with us.
There - and now I am busy. Goodnight."
With these words Muller pushed the astonished man out of the room,
shut the door, and sat down again with his little book. This is
what he read:
"Wednesday - is it Wednesday? They brought me a newspaper to-day
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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 Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: efforts in recovering the lost bills, but Hiram declined it,
positively and finally. "All I want," said he, in his usual dull,
stolid fashion, "is to have folks know I'm honest."
Nevertheless, though he did not accept what the agents of the
packet offered, fate took the matter into its own hands and
rewarded him not unsubstantially. Blueskin was taken to England
in the Scorpion. But he never came to trial. While in Newgate he
hanged himself to the cell window with his own stockings. The
news of his end was brought to Lewes in the early autumn and
Squire Hall took immediate measures to have the five hundred
pounds of his father's legacy duly transferred to Hiram.
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
