| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: them, ought not that art to have one name?
THEAETETUS: And what is the name of the art?
STRANGER: The art of discerning or discriminating.
THEAETETUS: Very good.
STRANGER: Think whether you cannot divide this.
THEAETETUS: I should have to think a long while.
STRANGER: In all the previously named processes either like has been
separated from like or the better from the worse.
THEAETETUS: I see now what you mean.
STRANGER: There is no name for the first kind of separation; of the
second, which throws away the worse and preserves the better, I do know a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: was turned down all round, and adorned by an enormous tricolour
cockade. This hat he removed as he entered.
Jacques, standing behind him, perceived that his hair, although now
in some disorder, bore signs of having been carefully dressed. It
was clubbed, and it carried some lingering vestiges of powder. The
young footman wondered what it was in the man's face, which was
turned from him, that should cause his mistress to out and recoil.
Then he found himself dismissed abruptly by a gesture.
The newcomer advanced to the middle of the salon, moving like a man
exhausted and breathing hard. There he leaned against a table,
across which he confronted Mme. de Plougastel. And she stood
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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 Talisman by Walter Scott: confess, and would find Westminster Hall something too narrow for
them."
"Hush, De Vaux," said Richard, "I command thee.--Noble Saladin,"
he said, "suspicion and thou cannot exist on the same ground.
Seest thou," pointing to the litters, "I too have brought some
champions with me, though armed, perhaps, in breach of agreement;
for bright eyes and fair features are weapons which cannot be
left behind."
The Soldan, turning to the litters, made an obeisance as lowly as
if looking towards Mecca, and kissed the sand in token of
respect.
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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 Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: and it was perhaps needed in both. It is an instructor never
a day before its time, for it comes only when all other means
of progress and enlightenment have failed. Whether the oppressed
and despairing bondman, no longer able to repress his deep yearnings
for manhood, or the tyrant, in his pride and impatience, takes the initiative,
and strikes the blow for a firmer hold and a longer lease of oppression,
the result is the same,--society is instructed, or may be.
Such are the limitations of the common mind, and so thoroughly
engrossing are the cares of common life, that only the few among
men can discern through the glitter and dazzle of present prosperity
the dark outlines of approaching disasters, even though they may have
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