| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: accompanied by the not unnatural feeling that they would be fiercer and
more inconsiderate in their words when emancipated from his control.
The above remarks must be understood as applying with any degree of
certainty to the Platonic Socrates only. For, although these or similar
words may have been spoken by Socrates himself, we cannot exclude the
possibility, that like so much else, e.g. the wisdom of Critias, the poem
of Solon, the virtues of Charmides, they may have been due only to the
imagination of Plato. The arguments of those who maintain that the Apology
was composed during the process, resting on no evidence, do not require a
serious refutation. Nor are the reasonings of Schleiermacher, who argues
that the Platonic defence is an exact or nearly exact reproduction of the
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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 Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: towards Philadelphia, with several people in her. They took me in,
and, as there was no wind, we row'd all the way; and about midnight,
not having yet seen the city, some of the company were confident
we must have passed it, and would row no farther; the others knew
not where we were; so we put toward the shore, got into a creek,
landed near an old fence, with the rails of which we made a fire,
the night being cold, in October, and there we remained till daylight.
Then one of the company knew the place to be Cooper's Creek, a little
above Philadelphia, which we saw as soon as we got out of the creek,
and arriv'd there about eight or nine o'clock on the Sunday morning,
and landed at the Market-street wharf.
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: employments.
Most acquirements carry their own privileges with them. Thus a baby
has to be pretty closely guarded and imprisoned because it cannot take
care of itself. It has even to be carried about (the most complete
conceivable infringement of its liberty) until it can walk. But
nobody goes on carrying children after they can walk lest they should
walk into mischief, though Arab boys make their sisters carry them, as
our own spoiled children sometimes make their nurses, out of mere
laziness, because sisters in the East and nurses in the West are kept
in servitude. But in a society of equals (the only reasonable and
permanently possible sort of society) children are in much greater
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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 Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber: chill and funereal parlor sofa, and the small Minnie peering
in to feast her eyes upon its blond and waxen beauty.
"Here," she had said, "take this, and sew it on the head, so
Minnie'll have something she can hold, at least." And she
had wrapped a pink cambric, sawdust-stuffed body in with the
head.
It was a snowy and picturesque Christmas, and intensely
cold, with the hard, dry, cutting cold of Wisconsin. Near
the door the little store was freezing. Every time the door
opened it let in a blast. Near the big glowing stove it was
very hot.
Fanny Herself |
