| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: DEY knows how to work a nigger to death, en dey knows how
to whale 'em too--whale 'em till dey backs is welted like a washboard.
'Long at fust my marster say de good word for me to
de overseer, but dat 'uz bad for me; for de mistis she fine it
out, en arter dat I jist ketched it at every turn--dey warn't no
mercy for me no mo'."
Tom's heart was fired--with fury against the planter's wife;
and he said to himself, "But for that meddlesome fool,
everything would have gone all right." He added a deep and bitter
curse against her.
The expression of this sentiment was fiercely written in his face,
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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 Theaetetus by Plato: They show us, not the processes of mental action, but the conditions of
which when deprived the mind ceases to act. It would seem as if the time
had not yet arrived when we can hope to add anything of much importance to
our knowledge of the mind from the investigations of the microscope. The
elements of Psychology can still only be learnt from reflections on
ourselves, which interpret and are also interpreted by our experience of
others. The history of language, of philosophy, and religion, the great
thoughts or inventions or discoveries which move mankind, furnish the
larger moulds or outlines in which the human mind has been cast. From
these the individual derives so much as he is able to comprehend or has the
opportunity of learning.
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