| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Princess by Alfred Tennyson: 'Our land invaded, 'sdeath! and he himself
Your captive, yet my father wills not war:
And, 'sdeath! myself, what care I, war or no?
but then this question of your troth remains:
And there's a downright honest meaning in her;
She flies too high, she flies too high! and yet
She asked but space and fairplay for her scheme;
She prest and prest it on me--I myself,
What know I of these things? but, life and soul!
I thought her half-right talking of her wrongs;
I say she flies too high, 'sdeath! what of that?
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: they are present to Plato's mind, namely, the remark that the soul, which
had seen truths in the form of the universal, cannot again return to the
nature of an animal.
In the Phaedo, as in the Meno, the origin of ideas is sought for in a
previous state of existence. There was no time when they could have been
acquired in this life, and therefore they must have been recovered from
another. The process of recovery is no other than the ordinary law of
association, by which in daily life the sight of one thing or person
recalls another to our minds, and by which in scientific enquiry from any
part of knowledge we may be led on to infer the whole. It is also argued
that ideas, or rather ideals, must be derived from a previous state of
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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 Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: but he did not. He wondered if Neff remembered he was there,--
if any of the boys thought of him up there, and thought that he
never was to go down that old cinder-road again. Never again!
He had not quite understood it before; but now he did. Not for
days or years, but never!--that was it.
How clear the light fell on that stall in front of the market!
and how like a picture it was, the dark-green heaps of corn, and
the crimson beets, and golden melons! There was another with
game: how the light flickered on that pheasant's breast, with
the purplish blood dripping over the brown feathers! He could
see the red shining of the drops, it was so near. In one minute
Life in the Iron-Mills |
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 Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: of letters."
At this solemn moment the Marquis spoke without hesitation or any of
the repetition habitual with him; but it is a matter of common
observation that persons who, in ordinary life, are afflicted with
these two defects, are freed from them as soon as any passionate
emotion underlies their speech.
"The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was decreed," he went on. "You
are no doubt aware, monsieur, that this was an opportunity for many
favorites to make their fortunes. Louis XIV. bestowed on the magnates
about his Court the confiscated lands of those Protestant families who
did not take the prescribed steps for the sale of their property. Some
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