| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: was obliged to return to Tours with her mistress, and who, in
order to appear smart and attractive, stole some perfumed paper,
and sealed her letter with a duchess's coronet."
"What do you say?"
"Hold! I must have lost it," said the young man maliciously,
pretending to search for it. "But fortunately the world is a
sepulcher; the men, and consequently the women, are but shadows,
and love is a sentiment to which you cry, 'Fie! Fie!'"
"D'Artagnan, D'Artagnan," cried Aramis, "you are killing me!"
"Well, here it is at last!" said D'Artagnan, as he drew the
letter from his pocket.
The Three Musketeers |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: either in the Timaeus or in any other dialogue, of the truths which he
conceives to be the first and highest. It is not the existence of God or
the idea of good which he approaches in a tentative or hesitating manner,
but the investigations of physiology. These he regards, not seriously, as
a part of philosophy, but as an innocent recreation (Tim.).
Passing on to the Parmenides, we find in that dialogue not an exposition or
defence of the doctrine of ideas, but an assault upon them, which is put
into the mouth of the veteran Parmenides, and might be ascribed to
Aristotle himself, or to one of his disciples. The doctrine which is
assailed takes two or three forms, but fails in any of them to escape the
dialectical difficulties which are urged against it. It is admitted that
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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 Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: century, has within the past twenty-five years swept so rapidly
over Europe and America, we see the ground laid for a new sort of
religion of Nature, which has entirely displaced Christianity
from the thought of a large part of our generation. The idea of
a universal evolution lends itself to a doctrine of general
meliorism and progress which fits the religious needs of the
healthy-minded so well that it seems almost as if it might have
been created for their use. Accordingly we find "evolutionism"
interpreted thus optimistically and embraced as a substitute for
the religion they were born in, by a multitude of our
contemporaries who have either been trained scientifically, or
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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 Heroes by Charles Kingsley: again; I will show you how easy it is to do.' So she took an
old ram and killed him, and put him in a cauldron with magic
herbs; and whispered her spells over him, and he leapt out
again a young lamb. So that 'Medeia's cauldron' is a proverb
still, by which we mean times of war and change, when the
world has become old and feeble, and grows young again
through bitter pains.
Then she said to Pelias' daughters, 'Do to your father as I
did to this ram, and he will grow young and strong again.'
But she only told them half the spell; so they failed, while
Medeia mocked them; and poor old Pelias died, and his
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