| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: SOCRATES: Consider a further point: did we not understand them to explain
the generation of heat, whiteness, or anything else, in some such manner as
the following:--were they not saying that each of them is moving between
the agent and the patient, together with a perception, and that the patient
ceases to be a perceiving power and becomes a percipient, and the agent a
quale instead of a quality? I suspect that quality may appear a strange
and uncouth term to you, and that you do not understand the abstract
expression. Then I will take concrete instances: I mean to say that the
producing power or agent becomes neither heat nor whiteness but hot and
white, and the like of other things. For I must repeat what I said before,
that neither the agent nor patient have any absolute existence, but when
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: depraved taste by a sentence of death, you do not know the grip that a
man's failings have upon him; let a man discover some satisfaction for
himself, and the headsman will not keep him from it.--How is it that
the vice has this power? Is it inherent strength in the vice, or
inherent weakness in human nature? Are there certain tastes that
should be regarded as verging on insanity? For myself, I cannot help
laughing at the moralists who try to expel such diseases by fine
phrases.--Well, it so fell out that the steward refused a demand for
money; and the Duke taking fright at this, called for an audit. Sheer
imbecility! Nothing easier than to make out a balance-sheet; the
difficulty never lies there. The steward gave his secretary all the
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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 A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde: have no philosophy of life.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. You are right. We women live by our emotions and
for them. By our passions, and for them, if you will. I have two
passions, Lord Illingworth: my love of him, my hate of you. You
cannot kill those. They feed each other.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. What sort of love is that which needs to have
hate as its brother?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. It is the sort of love I have for Gerald. Do you
think that terrible? Well it is terrible. All love is terrible.
All love is a tragedy. I loved you once, Lord Illingworth. Oh,
what a tragedy for a woman to have loved you!
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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 Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: street, he would throw me a glance of intelligence full of
unutterable dignity; he would affect to walk as though he carried
no weight, and seemed happy in seeing me in good health and well
dressed. It was, in fact, the devoted affection of the lower
classes, the love of a girl of the people transferred to a
loftier level. Bourgeat did all my errands, woke me at night at
any fixed hour, trimmed my lamp, cleaned our landing; as good as
a servant as he was as a father, and as clean as an English girl.
He did all the housework. Like Philopoemen, he sawed our wood,
and gave to all he did the grace of simplicity while preserving
his dignity, for he seemed to understand that the end ennobles
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