| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Case of the Registered Letter by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: of it - it was his revolver. He acknowledges it, but he did not
know, until the police showed it to him, that the weapon was not in
its usual place in his study. They tell me that everything speaks
for his guilt, but I cannot believe it - I cannot. He says he is
innocent in spite of everything. I believe him. I brought him up,
sir; I was like his own mother to him. He never knew any other
mother. He never lied to me, not once, when he was a little boy,
and I don't believe he'd lie to me now, now that he's a man of
forty-five. He says he did not kill John Siders. Oh, I know, even
without his saying it, that he would not do such a thing."
"Can you tell us anything more about the murder itself?" questioned
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: Robespierre, who is still waiting to be justly judged. Catherine was,
moreover, rightly punished for her preference for the Duc d'Anjou, to
whose interests the two elder brothers were sacrificed. Henri III.,
like all spoilt children, ended in becoming absolutely indifferent to
his mother, and he plunged voluntarily into the life of debauchery
which made of him what his mother had made of Charles IX., a husband
without sons, a king without heirs. Unhappily the Duc d'Alencon,
Catherine's last male child, had already died, a natural death.
The last words of the great queen were like a summing up of her
lifelong policy, which was, moreover, so plain in its common-sense
that all cabinets are seen under similar circumstances to put it in
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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 Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde: ALGERNON.] Both these gentlemen have expressed a desire for
immediate baptism.
LADY BRACKNELL. At their age? The idea is grotesque and
irreligious! Algernon, I forbid you to be baptized. I will not
hear of such excesses. Lord Bracknell would be highly displeased
if he learned that that was the way in which you wasted your time
and money.
CHASUBLE. Am I to understand then that there are to he no
christenings at all this afternoon?
JACK. I don't think that, as things are now, it would be of much
practical value to either of us, Dr. Chasuble.
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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 Parmenides by Plato: groundless assumption. The real progress of Plato's own mind has been
partly concealed from us by the dogmatic statements of Aristotle, and also
by the degeneracy of his own followers, with whom a doctrine of numbers
quickly superseded Ideas.
As a preparation for answering some of the difficulties which have been
suggested, we may begin by sketching the first portion of the dialogue:--
Cephalus, of Clazomenae in Ionia, the birthplace of Anaxagoras, a citizen
of no mean city in the history of philosophy, who is the narrator of the
dialogue, describes himself as meeting Adeimantus and Glaucon in the Agora
at Athens. 'Welcome, Cephalus: can we do anything for you in Athens?'
'Why, yes: I came to ask a favour of you. First, tell me your half-
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