| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: time, however, I am inclined to think that the speaker who is chosen will
not have much to say, for he has been called upon to speak at a moment's
notice, and he will be compelled almost to improvise.
SOCRATES: But why, my friend, should he not have plenty to say? Every
rhetorician has speeches ready made; nor is there any difficulty in
improvising that sort of stuff. Had the orator to praise Athenians among
Peloponnesians, or Peloponnesians among Athenians, he must be a good
rhetorician who could succeed and gain credit. But there is no difficulty
in a man's winning applause when he is contending for fame among the
persons whom he is praising.
MENEXENUS: Do you think not, Socrates?
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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 Call of the Wild by Jack London: from the land of streams and timber, and chief among them was a
great bull. He was in a savage temper, and, standing over six
feet from the ground, was as formidable an antagonist as even Buck
could desire. Back and forth the bull tossed his great palmated
antlers, branching to fourteen points and embracing seven feet
within the tips. His small eyes burned with a vicious and bitter
light, while he roared with fury at sight of Buck.
From the bull's side, just forward of the flank, protruded a
feathered arrow-end, which accounted for his savageness. Guided by
that instinct which came from the old hunting days of the
primordial world, Buck proceeded to cut the bull out from the
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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 Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts
were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it--
all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered
from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war,
insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--
seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation.
Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather
than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather
than let it perish. And the war came.
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed
generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it.
Second Inaugural Address |
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 Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: veins the blood of three lads was infused by a Jewish doctor;
Sigismondo Malatesta, the lover of Isotta and the lord of Rimini,
whose effigy was burned at Rome as the enemy of God and man,
who strangled Polyssena with a napkin, and gave poison
to Ginevra d'Este in a cup of emerald, and in honour of a
shameful passion built a pagan church for Christian worship;
Charles VI, who had so wildly adored his brother's wife that a
leper had warned him of the insanity that was coming on him,
and who, when his brain had sickened and grown strange,
could only be soothed by Saracen cards painted with the images
of love and death and madness; and, in his trimmed jerkin
The Picture of Dorian Gray |
