| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Reef by Edith Wharton: ribbons, and seeing that the dogs get their sulphur? One
looks in one's glass, after all!"
She launched the closing words at him on a cry that lifted
them above the petulance of vanity; but his sense of her
words was lost in the surprise of her face. Under the
flying clouds of her excitement it was no longer a shallow
flower-cup but a darkening gleaming mirror that might give
back strange depths of feeling. The girl had stuff in her--
he saw it; and she seemed to catch the perception in his
eyes.
"That's the kind of education I got at Mrs. Murrett's--and
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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 Charmides by Plato: has any feeling of what is due to himself, he cannot let the thought which
comes into his mind pass away unheeded and unexamined.
I like that, he said.
Hear, then, I said, my own dream; whether coming through the horn or the
ivory gate, I cannot tell. The dream is this: Let us suppose that wisdom
is such as we are now defining, and that she has absolute sway over us;
then each action will be done according to the arts or sciences, and no one
professing to be a pilot when he is not, or any physician or general, or
any one else pretending to know matters of which he is ignorant, will
deceive or elude us; our health will be improved; our safety at sea, and
also in battle, will be assured; our coats and shoes, and all other
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