| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: of the Warmouth mansion is graduated to the same large scale.
We saw steam-plows at work, here, for the first time. The traction engine
travels about on its own wheels, till it reaches the required spot;
then it stands still and by means of a wire rope pulls the huge plow toward
itself two or three hundred yards across the field, between the rows of cane.
The thing cuts down into the black mold a foot and a half deep.
The plow looks like a fore-and-aft brace of a Hudson river steamer, inverted.
When the negro steersman sits on one end of it, that end tilts down near
the ground, while the other sticks up high in air. This great see-saw goes
rolling and pitching like a ship at sea, and it is not every circus rider
that could stay on it.
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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 Reef by Edith Wharton: about that particular evening. It's only that I want you to
have the whole of my feeling. I didn't know what it was
till I saw you again. I never dreamed I should say such
things to you!"
"I never dreamed I should be here to hear you say them!" He
turned back and lifting a floating end of her scarf put his
lips to it. "But now that you have, I know--I know," he
smiled down at her.
"You know?"
"That this is no light thing between us. Now you may ask me
anything you please! That was all I wanted to ask YOU."
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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 Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: for you must understand that Mr. Hoopdriver danced uncommonly
well. Or again, in the shop, a sudden radiance in the doorway,
and she is bowed towards the Manchester counter. And then to lean
over that counter and murmur, seemingly apropos of the goods
under discussion, "I have not forgotten that morning on the
Portsmouth road," and lower, "I never shall forget."
At Northchapel Mr. Hoopdriver consulted his map and took counsel
and weighed his course of action. Petworth seemed a possible
resting-place, or Pullborough; Midhurst seemed too near, and any
place over the Downs beyond, too far, and so he meandered towards
Petworth, posing himself perpetually and loitering, gathering
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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 Charmides by Plato: the refutation.
I think that you are right, he replied; and I will do as you say.
Tell me, then, I said, what you mean to affirm about wisdom.
I mean to say that wisdom is the only science which is the science of
itself as well as of the other sciences.
But the science of science, I said, will also be the science of the absence
of science.
Very true, he said.
Then the wise or temperate man, and he only, will know himself, and be able
to examine what he knows or does not know, and to see what others know and
think that they know and do really know; and what they do not know, and
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