| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: of Lysias, and different. Now I am certain that this is not an invention
of my own, who am well aware that I know nothing, and therefore I can only
infer that I have been filled through the ears, like a pitcher, from the
waters of another, though I have actually forgotten in my stupidity who was
my informant.
PHAEDRUS: That is grand:--but never mind where you heard the discourse or
from whom; let that be a mystery not to be divulged even at my earnest
desire. Only, as you say, promise to make another and better oration,
equal in length and entirely new, on the same subject; and I, like the nine
Archons, will promise to set up a golden image at Delphi, not only of
myself, but of you, and as large as life.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: me. 'We can have a coon in hell with this here petroleum before your
old flint-and-tinder truck can get him warm enough to perfess
religion.' And so I gives up the kindler and drifts up here to K.C.
This little curtain-raiser you seen me doing, Mr. Pickens, with the
simulated farm and the hypothetical teams, ain't in my line at all,
and I'm ashamed you found me working it."
"No man," says I, kindly, "need to be ashamed of putting the skibunk
on a loan corporation for even so small a sum as ten dollars, when he
is financially abashed. Still, it wasn't quite the proper thing. It's
too much like borrowing money without paying it back."
I liked Buckingham Skinner from the start, for as good a man as ever
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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 Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: Softer than wax, and yet, as iron, rusty:
A lily pale, with damask dye to grace her,
None fairer, nor none falser to deface her.
Her lips to mine how often hath she joined,
Between each kiss her oaths of true love swearing!
How many tales to please me bath she coined,
Dreading my love, the loss thereof still fearing!
Yet in the midst of all her pure protestings,
Her faith, her oaths, her tears, and all were jestings.
She burn'd with love, as straw with fire flameth;
She burn'd out love, as soon as straw outburneth;
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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 Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: veriest aristocrat, full of hatred and contempt of these dangerous
classes, whose existence I had for the first time discovered. It
required many years--years, too, of personal intercourse with the
poor--to explain to me the true meaning of what I saw here in
October twenty-seven years ago, and to learn a part of that lesson
which God taught to others thereby. And one part at least of that
lesson was this: That the social state of a city depends directly
on its moral state, and--I fear dissenting voices, but I must say
what I believe to be truth--that the moral state of a city
depends--how far I know not, but frightfully, to an extent as yet
uncalculated, and perhaps incalculable--on the physical state of
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