| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Hermione's Little Group of Serious Thinkers by Don Marquis: Parasite Woman over into an Awakened and En-
lightened Member of Society, independent of the
Man-Made System that has shackled her for so
long.
What is nobler than Emancipation?
Of course, I'll have to have a Secretary, And
to get one especially training in organizing the Mis-
sion will cost quite a bit, probably.
But Papa will never miss it.
And I think I'll have a MAN for a Secretary.
One that is quite presentable socially, you
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: Mister Sir, doos oo know?"
"They're good for something," I said: "even if we don't know what.
What's the good of dandelions, now?"
"Dindledums?" said Bruno. "Oh, they're ever so pretty! And stones
aren't pretty, one bit. Would oo like some dindledums, Mister Sir?"
"Bruno!" Sylvie murmured reproachfully. "You mustn't say 'Mister' and
'Sir,' both at once! Remember what I told you!"
"You telled me I were to say Mister' when I spoked about him,
and I were to say 'Sir' when I spoked to him!"
"Well, you're not doing both, you know."
"Ah, but I is doing bofe, Miss Praticular!" Bruno exclaimed
Sylvie and Bruno |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: proprietors?--In honest truth, I think sometimes to the one, and sometimes
to the other, just as the temptation has wrought. But a villainous affair
it is, and will one day so blend and confound us all together, that no one
shall be able to stand up and swear, 'That his own great grandfather was
the man who did either this or that.'
This evil had been sufficiently fenced against by the prudent care of the
Yorick's family, and their religious preservation of these records I quote,
which do farther inform us, That the family was originally of Danish
extraction, and had been transplanted into England as early as in the reign
of Horwendillus, king of Denmark, in whose court, it seems, an ancestor of
this Mr Yorick's, and from whom he was lineally descended, held a
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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: now been attributing to another art.
Very true.
How then can wisdom be advantageous, when giving no advantage?
That, Socrates, is certainly inconceivable.
You see then, Critias, that I was not far wrong in fearing that I could
have no sound notion about wisdom; I was quite right in depreciating
myself; for that which is admitted to be the best of all things would never
have seemed to us useless, if I had been good for anything at an enquiry.
But now I have been utterly defeated, and have failed to discover what that
is to which the imposer of names gave this name of temperance or wisdom.
And yet many more admissions were made by us than could be fairly granted;
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