| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: She hears slow steps in the street--they chime like music;
They climb to her heart, they break and flower in beauty,
Along her veins they glisten and ring and burn. . . .
He hears his own slow steps tread down to silence.
Far off they pass. He knows they will never return.
Far off--on a smooth dark road--he hears them faintly.
The road, like a sombre river, quietly flowing,
Moves among murmurous walls. A deeper breath
Swells them to sound: he hears his steps more clearly.
And death seems nearer to him: or he to death.
What's death?--She smiles. The cool stone hurts her elbows.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: by them under different conditions of language and civilization; but in
some cases a mere word has survived, while nothing or hardly anything of
the pre-Socratic, Platonic, or Aristotelian meaning is retained. There are
other questions familiar to the moderns, which have no place in ancient
philosophy. The world has grown older in two thousand years, and has
enlarged its stock of ideas and methods of reasoning. Yet the germ of
modern thought is found in ancient, and we may claim to have inherited,
notwithstanding many accidents of time and place, the spirit of Greek
philosophy. There is, however, no continuous growth of the one into the
other, but a new beginning, partly artificial, partly arising out of the
questionings of the mind itself, and also receiving a stimulus from 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 An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde: MRS. CHEVELEY. You thought that letter had been destroyed. How
foolish of you! It is in my possession.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. The affair to which you allude was no more than
a speculation. The House of Commons had not yet passed the bill; it
might have been rejected.
MRS. CHEVELEY. It was a swindle, Sir Robert. Let us call things by
their proper names. It makes everything simpler. And now I am going
to sell you that letter, and the price I ask for it is your public
support of the Argentine scheme. You made your own fortune out of
one canal. You must help me and my friends to make our fortunes out
of another!
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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 Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: views, when the old courtier began eagerly to
refute her arguments, and they started a polite
but very heated discussion.
For a time the young Tsar followed their argu-
ments, but presently he ceased to be aware of
what they said, listening only to the voice of him
who had been his guide in the dream, and who
was now speaking audibly in his heart.
"You are not only the Tsar," said the voice,
"but more. You are a human being, who only
yesterday came into this world, and will perchance
The Forged Coupon |
