| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: proved not to know, and then after all he will be knowing and not knowing
at the same time.
Dionysodorus blushed.
I turned to the other, and said, What do you think, Euthydemus? Does not
your omniscient brother appear to you to have made a mistake?
What, replied Dionysodorus in a moment; am I the brother of Euthydemus?
Thereupon I said, Please not to interrupt, my good friend, or prevent
Euthydemus from proving to me that I know the good to be unjust; such a
lesson you might at least allow me to learn.
You are running away, Socrates, said Dionysodorus, and refusing to answer.
No wonder, I said, for I am not a match for one of you, and a fortiori I
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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 Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: you mean, was it Mr. Hyde?--why, yes, I think it was!" You see,
it was much of the same bigness; and it had the same quick, light
way with it; and then who else could have got in by the laboratory
door? You have not forgot, sir, that at the time of the murder he
had still the key with him? But that's not all. I don't know,
Mr. Utterson, if you ever met this Mr. Hyde?"
"Yes," said the lawyer, "I once spoke with him."
"Then you must know as well as the rest of us that there was
something queer about that gentleman--something that gave a man
a turn--I don't know rightly how to say it, sir, beyond this:
that you felt in your marrow kind of cold and thin."
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: "It is he!" cried D'Artagnan, pale with anger, an with the sweat on his
brow, "it is he! let me overtake him!"
"He? What he?" asked Athos.
"He, that man!"
"What man?"
"That cursed man, my evil genius, whom I have always met with when
threatened by some misfortune, he who accompanied that horrible woman
when I met her for the first time, he whom I was seeking when I offended
our Athos, he whom I saw on the very morning Madame Bonacieux was
abducted. I have seen him; that is he! I recognized him when the wind
blew upon his cloak."
The Three Musketeers |
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 Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: The bombardment of Rome by the French troops was the bait thrown at the
Mountain. It violated Article V. of the Constitution, which forbade the
French republic to use its forces against the liberties of other
nations; besides, Article IV. forbade all declaration of war by the
Executive without the consent of the National Assembly; furthermore, the
constitutive assembly had censured the Roman expedition by its
resolution of May 8. Upon these grounds, Ledru-Rollin submitted on June
11, 1849, a motion impeaching Bonaparte and his Ministers. Instigated
by the wasp-stings of Thiers, he even allowed himself to be carried away
to the point of threatening to defend the Constitution by all means,
even arms in hand. The Mountain rose as one man, and repeated the
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