| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Redheaded Outfield by Zane Grey: All the badinage was good-natured, which was
sure proof that the Quakers had not arrived at
anything like real appreciation of the Rube. They
were accustomed to observe the trying out of
many youngsters, of whom ninety-nine out of a
hundred failed to make good.
Dugan chopped at three strikes and slammed
his bat down. Hucker hit a slow fly to Hoffer.
Three men out on five pitched balls! Cogswell,
old war horse that he was, stood a full moment
and watched the Rube as he walked in to the
 The Redheaded Outfield |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: God, embracing and in a manner signifying all four of them,--music, and
prophecy, and medicine, and archery.
HERMOGENES: That must be a strange name, and I should like to hear the
explanation.
SOCRATES: Say rather an harmonious name, as beseems the God of Harmony.
In the first place, the purgations and purifications which doctors and
diviners use, and their fumigations with drugs magical or medicinal, as
well as their washings and lustral sprinklings, have all one and the same
object, which is to make a man pure both in body and soul.
HERMOGENES: Very true.
SOCRATES: And is not Apollo the purifier, and the washer, and the absolver
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