| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: Protagoras and Hippias agreed, but Prodicus said that this was fear and not
terror.
Never mind, Prodicus, I said; but let me ask whether, if our former
assertions are true, a man will pursue that which he fears when he is not
compelled? Would not this be in flat contradiction to the admission which
has been already made, that he thinks the things which he fears to be evil;
and no one will pursue or voluntarily accept that which he thinks to be
evil?
That also was universally admitted.
Then, I said, these, Hippias and Prodicus, are our premisses; and I would
beg Protagoras to explain to us how he can be right in what he said at
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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 Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: his head away. A terrible groan startled him. It was the poor
poodle, who died with a long-drawn howl.
"Could the brute have been in the secret?" thought Don Juan,
looking down at the faithful creature.
Don Juan Belvidero was looked upon as a dutiful son. He reared a
white marble monument on his father's tomb, and employed the
greatest sculptors of the time upon it. He did not recover
perfect ease of mind till the day when his father knelt in marble
before Religion, and the heavy weight of the stone had sealed the
mouth of the grave in which he had laid the one feeling of
remorse that sometimes flitted through his soul in moments of
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