| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: for the tenants on the estate of Shaws! And I might add (if it
was a matter I cared much about) what a time for Mr. Ebenezer!"
"And yet that is certainly the strangest part of all," said I,
"that a man's nature should thus change."
"True," said Mr. Rankeillor. "And yet I imagine it was natural
enough. He could not think that he had played a handsome part.
Those who knew the story gave him the cold shoulder; those who
knew it not, seeing one brother disappear, and the other succeed
in the estate, raised a cry of murder; so that upon all sides he
found himself evited. Money was all he got by his bargain; well,
he came to think the more of money. He was selfish when he was
Kidnapped |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: galleries, the stained glass windows framed in archways, divided by
slender columns, fretted into flower forms and trefoil by fine
filigree work of carved stone. A dome of glass at the end of the choir
sparkled as if it had been built of precious stones set cunningly. In
contrast to the roof with its alternating spaces of whiteness and
color, the two aisles lay to right and left in shadow so deep that the
faint gray outlines of their hundred shafts were scarcely visible in
the gloom. I gazed at the marvelous arcades, the scroll-work, the
garlands, the curving lines, and arabesques interwoven and interlaced,
and strangely lighted, until by sheer dint of gazing my perceptions
became confused, and I stood upon the borderland between illusion and
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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 Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: [20] The references are perhaps (1) to the events of the year 447
B.C., see Thuc. i. 113; cf. Aristot. "Pol." v. 3, 5; (2) to 440
B.C., Thuc. i. 115; Diod. xii. 27, 28; Plut. "Pericl." c. 24; (3)
to those of 464 B.C., followed by 457 B.C., Thuc. i. 102; Plut.
"Cimon," c. 16; and Thuc. i. 108.
I seem to overhear a retort, "No one, of course, is deprived of his
civil rights at Athens unjustly." My answer is, that there are some
who are unjustly deprived of their civil rights, though the cases are
certainly rare. But it will take more than a few to attack the
democracy at Athens, since you may take it as an established fact, it
is not the man who has lost his civil rights justly that takes 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 Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: "Hear, hear," two or three people muttered.
"Now, if you perhaps mean that these 'airplanes,' as you call
them, are somehow flung into the air for a short distance and then
fall to the ground, well, then perhaps that would be possible." The
professor looked expectantly and a bit condescendingly at the
traveler, hoping that the man would take this face-saving opportunity.
"No, no. You don't understand," said the traveler. "The
airplanes have powerful motors and the craft rise into the air, and
they stay up as long as they want, as long as the fuel holds out."
There were several audible "hmmphs" around the room.
"Tell us then," said another scholar, in a saccharine voice,
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