| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: again are comprehended in a higher object, which reunites with the subject.
A multitude of abstractions are created by the efforts of successive
thinkers which become logical determinations; and they have to be arranged
in order, before the scheme of thought is complete. The framework of the
human intellect is not the peculium of an individual, but the joint work of
many who are of all ages and countries. What we are in mind is due, not
merely to our physical, but to our mental antecedents which we trace in
history, and more especially in the history of philosophy. Nor can mental
phenomena be truly explained either by physiology or by the observation of
consciousness apart from their history. They have a growth of their own,
like the growth of a flower, a tree, a human being. They may be conceived
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: tail, sufficiently indicates that this is a new kind of bear. The
further study of it will be exceedingly interesting. Meantime I
will go off on a far expedition among the forests of the North and
make an exhaustive search. There must certainly be another one
somewhere, and this one will be less dangerous when it has company
of its own species. I will go straightway; but I will muzzle this
one first.
Three Months Later
It has been a weary, weary hunt, yet I have had no success. In
the mean time, without stirring from the home estate, she has
caught another one! I never saw such luck. I might have hunted
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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 The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: with this strange and whimsical being?
Filled with such thoughts, Porbus said to the old man, "Is it not
woman for woman? Poussin lends his mistress to your eyes."
"What sort of mistress is that?" cried Frenhofer. "She will betray him
sooner or later. Mine will be to me forever faithful."
"Well," returned Porbus, "then let us say no more. But before you
find, even in Asia, a woman as beautiful, as perfect, as the one I
speak of, you may be dead, and your picture forever unfinished."
"Oh, it is finished!" said Frenhofer. "Whoever sees it will find a
woman lying on a velvet bed, beneath curtains; perfumes are exhaling
from a golden tripod by her side: he will be tempted to take 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 The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: useful permanent institutions; consequently, neither he nor his wife
kept a carriage. Also his word was felt to be sacred, and his coffers
held as much of the money of others as a bank; and also, we may add,
he went by the name of "Our good Monsieur Mathias," and when he died,
three thousand persons followed him to his grave.
Solonet was the style of young notary who comes in humming a tune,
affects light-heartedness, declares that business is better done with
a laugh than seriously. He is the notary captain of the national
guard, who dislikes to be taken for a notary, solicits the cross of
the Legion of honor, keeps his cabriolet, and leaves the verification
of his deeds to his clerks; he is the notary who goes to balls and
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