| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: ERYXIAS: He would not.
SOCRATES: And does not this apply in other cases? If we did not want for
the service of the body the things of which we now stand in need, and heat
and cold and the other bodily sensations were unperceived by us, there
would be no use in this so-called wealth, if no one, that is, had any
necessity for those things which now make us wish for wealth in order that
we may satisfy the desires and needs of the body in respect of our various
wants. And therefore if the possession of wealth is useful in ministering
to our bodily wants, and bodily wants were unknown to us, we should not
need wealth, and possibly there would be no such thing as wealth.
ERYXIAS: Clearly not.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: "mansion, the cask." There was an air of gloom in the tapestry
hangings, which, with their worn-out graces, curtained the walls
of the little chamber, and gently undulated as the autumnal
breeze found its way through the ancient lattice window, which
pattered and whistled as the air gained entrance. The toilet,
too, with its mirror, turbaned after the manner of the beginning
of the century, with a coiffure of murrey-coloured silk, and its
hundred strange-shaped boxes, providing for arrangements which
had been obsolete for more than fifty years, had an antique, and
in so far a melancholy, aspect. But nothing could blaze more
brightly and cheerfully than the two large wax candles; or if
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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 Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: more eager to penetrate that secret than to revenge herself for the
impertinence of the young man's speeches.
Eugene colored. A man must be more than twenty-five years of age not
to blush at being taxed with a fidelity that women laugh at--in order,
perhaps, not to show that they envy it. However, he replied with
tolerable self-possession:--
"Why not, madame?"
Such are the blunders we all make at twenty-five.
This speech caused a violent commotion in Madame de Listomere's bosom;
but Rastignac did not yet know how to analyze a woman's face by a
rapid or sidelong glance. The lips of the marquise paled, but that was
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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 The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: There were lives that were as dark as are the fears and intuitions
Of a child who knows himself and is alone with what he knows;
There were pensioners of dreams and there were debtors of illusions,
All to fail before the triumph of a weed that only grows.
There were thirsting heirs of golden sieves that held not wine or water,
And had no names in traffic or more value there than toys:
There were blighted sons of wonder in the Valley of the Shadow,
Where they suffered and still wondered why their wonder made no noise.
There were slaves who dragged the shackles of a precedent unbroken,
Demonstrating the fulfilment of unalterable schemes,
Which had been, before the cradle, Time's inexorable tenants
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