| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: understood.
It is not even necessary to descend so low as primitive beings to
obtain an insight into the utter powerlessness of reasoning when
it has to fight against sentiment. Let us merely call to mind
how tenacious, for centuries long, have been religious
superstitions in contradiction with the simplest logic. For
nearly two thousand years the most luminous geniuses have bowed
before their laws, and modern times have to be reached for their
veracity to be merely contested. The Middle Ages and the
Renaissance possessed many enlightened men, but not a single man
who attained by reasoning to an appreciation of the childish side
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: David whose liberality to the Romish Church provoked James's
witticism that "David was a sair saint for the crown." Andrew
Melville, so James Melville says, found fault with the style.
Buchanan replied that he could do no more for thinking of another
thing, which was to die. They then went to Arbuthnot's printing-
house, and inspected the history, as far as that terrible passage
concerning Rizzio's burial, where Mary is represented as "laying the
miscreant almost in the arms of Maud de Valois, the late queen."
Alarmed, and not without reason, at such plain speaking, they
stopped the press, and went back to Buchanan's house. Buchanan was
in bed. "He was going," he said, "the way of welfare." They asked
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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 Symposium by Plato: wisdom, if they are neither the wise nor the foolish?' 'A child may answer
that question,' she replied; 'they are those who are in a mean between the
two; Love is one of them. For wisdom is a most beautiful thing, and Love
is of the beautiful; and therefore Love is also a philosopher or lover of
wisdom, and being a lover of wisdom is in a mean between the wise and the
ignorant. And of this too his birth is the cause; for his father is
wealthy and wise, and his mother poor and foolish. Such, my dear Socrates,
is the nature of the spirit Love. The error in your conception of him was
very natural, and as I imagine from what you say, has arisen out of a
confusion of love and the beloved, which made you think that love was all
beautiful. For the beloved is the truly beautiful, and delicate, and
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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 The Faith of Men by Jack London: and maketh incantation before the time-honoured and ancient gods.
And all the people remember the wealth that ran down their throats,
and which they possess no more. And first, Esanetuk, who be SICK
TUMTUM, fought with Kluktu, and there was much noise. And next,
being daughters of the one mother, did they fight with Tukeliketa.
And after that did they three fall upon Moosu, like wind-squalls,
from every hand, till he ran forth from the igloo, and the people
mocked him. For a man who cannot command his womankind is a fool.'
"Then came Angeit: 'Great trouble hath befallen Moosu, O master,
for I have whispered to advantage, till the people came to Moosu,
saying they were hungry and demanding the fulfilment of prophecy.
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