| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: are they? What's the matter with him? What has she done?/ They lowered
their voices and walked away in order to talk more at their ease on
some retired couch. Never was a more promising mine laid open to
seekers after mysteries. No one knew from what country the Lanty
family came, nor to what source--commerce, extortion, piracy, or
inheritance--they owed a fortune estimated at several millions. All
the members of the family spoke Italian, French, Spanish, English, and
German, with sufficient fluency to lead one to suppose that they had
lived long among those different peoples. Were they gypsies? were they
buccaneers?
"Suppose they're the devil himself," said divers young politicians,
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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 Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde: cannot pluck out your eye. You would be quite blind then."
"Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow," said the Prince, "do as I
command you."
So he plucked out the Prince's other eye, and darted down with it.
He swooped past the match-girl, and slipped the jewel into the palm
of her hand. "What a lovely bit of glass," cried the little girl;
and she ran home, laughing.
Then the Swallow came back to the Prince. "You are blind now," he
said, "so I will stay with you always."
"No, little Swallow," said the poor Prince, "you must go away to
Egypt."
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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 Menexenus by Plato: be regarded as trustworthy); and (2) in the absence of the highest marks
either of poetical or philosophical excellence; and (3) considering that we
have express testimony to the existence of contemporary writings bearing
the name of Alcibiades, we are compelled to suspend our judgment on the
genuineness of the extant dialogue.
Neither at this point, nor at any other, do we propose to draw an absolute
line of demarcation between genuine and spurious writings of Plato. They
fade off imperceptibly from one class to another. There may have been
degrees of genuineness in the dialogues themselves, as there are certainly
degrees of evidence by which they are supported. The traditions of the
oral discourses both of Socrates and Plato may have formed the basis of
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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 Ion by Plato: as I am saying, receive the power of the original magnet from one another?
The rhapsode like yourself and the actor are intermediate links, and the
poet himself is the first of them. Through all these the God sways the
souls of men in any direction which he pleases, and makes one man hang down
from another. Thus there is a vast chain of dancers and masters and under-
masters of choruses, who are suspended, as if from the stone, at the side
of the rings which hang down from the Muse. And every poet has some Muse
from whom he is suspended, and by whom he is said to be possessed, which is
nearly the same thing; for he is taken hold of. And from these first
rings, which are the poets, depend others, some deriving their inspiration
from Orpheus, others from Musaeus; but the greater number are possessed and
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