| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: foresters formed a ring, in the centre of which the knight and bishop
danced with exemplary alacrity; and if they relaxed their exertions,
Scarlet gently touched them up with the point of an arrow.
The knight grimaced ruefully, and begged Robin to think of his gout.
"So I do," said Robin; "this is the true antipodagron:
you shall dance the gout away, and be thankful to me while you live.
I told you," he added to the bishop, "I would play at this wedding;
but you did not tell me that you would dance at it.
The next couple you marry, think of the Roman law."
The bishop was too much out of breath to reply; and now the young
couple issued from church, and the bride having made a farewell
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: intelligible to you, and will most accord with my own intent.
First then, in my judgment, we must make a distinction and ask, What is
that which always is and has no becoming; and what is that which is always
becoming and never is? That which is apprehended by intelligence and
reason is always in the same state; but that which is conceived by opinion
with the help of sensation and without reason, is always in a process of
becoming and perishing and never really is. Now everything that becomes or
is created must of necessity be created by some cause, for without a cause
nothing can be created. The work of the creator, whenever he looks to the
unchangeable and fashions the form and nature of his work after an
unchangeable pattern, must necessarily be made fair and perfect; but when
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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 Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe: pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its
Avatar and its seal--the redness and the horror of blood. There were
sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the
pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and
especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which
shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men.
And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease,
were the incidents of half an hour.
But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious.
When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his
presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the
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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: tell what you feel about this.
Certainly, he said.
In order, then, that I may form a conjecture whether you have temperance
abiding in you or not, tell me, I said, what, in your opinion, is
Temperance?
At first he hesitated, and was very unwilling to answer: then he said that
he thought temperance was doing things orderly and quietly, such things for
example as walking in the streets, and talking, or anything else of that
nature. In a word, he said, I should answer that, in my opinion,
temperance is quietness.
Are you right, Charmides? I said. No doubt some would affirm that the
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