| 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: to him by name, which (2) is of considerable length, of (3) great
excellence, and also (4) in harmony with the general spirit of the Platonic
writings. But the testimony of Aristotle cannot always be distinguished
from that of a later age (see above); and has various degrees of
importance. Those writings which he cites without mentioning Plato, under
their own names, e.g. the Hippias, the Funeral Oration, the Phaedo, etc.,
have an inferior degree of evidence in their favour. They may have been
supposed by him to be the writings of another, although in the case of
really great works, e.g. the Phaedo, this is not credible; those again
which are quoted but not named, are still more defective in their external
credentials. There may be also a possibility that Aristotle was mistaken,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: gold tassels, precisely opposite to the seat vacated of the burgher. A
silver-gilt lamp, hanging from the vaulted ceiling of the chapel
before an altar magnificently decorated, cast its pale light upon a
prayer-book held by the lady. The book trembled violently in her hand
when the young man approached her.
"A-men!"
To that response, sung in a sweet low voice which was painfully
agitated, though happily lost in the general clamor, she added rapidly
in a whisper:--
"You will ruin me."
The words were said in a tone of innocence which a man of any delicacy
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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 Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: water, with dark spruce woods still higher. There were crops in
the fields, which we presently distinguished from one another.
Mrs. Todd examined them while we were still far at sea. "Mother's
late potatoes looks backward; ain't had rain enough so far," she
pronounced her opinion. "They look weedier than what they call
Front Street down to Cowper Centre. I expect brother William is so
occupied with his herrin' weirs an' servin' out bait to the
schooners that he don't think once a day of the land."
"What's the flag for, up above the spruces there behind the
house?" I inquired, with eagerness.
"Oh, that's the sign for herrin'," she explained kindly, while
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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 Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: afterwards, if you pass by, you will find the earth pierced with
radiating galleries, and preserving the design of all these
subterranean spurs, as though it were the mould for a new tree
instead of the print of an old one. These pitch-pines of Monterey
are, with the single exception of the Monterey cypress, the most
fantastic of forest trees. No words can give an idea of the
contortion of their growth; they might figure without change in a
circle of the nether hell as Dante pictured it; and at the rate at
which trees grow, and at which forest fires spring up and gallop
through the hills of California, we may look forward to a time when
there will not be one of them left standing in that land of their
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