| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: immortal, and intellectual, and uniform, and indissoluble, and
unchangeable; and that the body is in the very likeness of the human, and
mortal, and unintellectual, and multiform, and dissoluble, and changeable.
Can this, my dear Cebes, be denied?
It cannot.
But if it be true, then is not the body liable to speedy dissolution? and
is not the soul almost or altogether indissoluble?
Certainly.
And do you further observe, that after a man is dead, the body, or visible
part of him, which is lying in the visible world, and is called a corpse,
and would naturally be dissolved and decomposed and dissipated, is not
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare: Haply been absent then.
COUNTESS.
But think you, Helen,
If you should tender your supposed aid,
He would receive it? He and his physicians
Are of a mind; he, that they cannot help him;
They, that they cannot help: how shall they credit
A poor unlearned virgin, when the schools,
Embowell'd of their doctrine, have let off
The danger to itself?
HELENA.
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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 Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: down to work in black velvet and pearls?"
"They'd manage it somehow," Buck assured her. "I don't know
just how; but I'm sure that twenty-four hours later our shop
would look like a Buckingham drawing-room when the court is in
mourning."
Emma never ceased to marvel at their ingenuity, at their almost
uncanny clothes-instinct. Their cheap skirts hung and fitted
with an art as perfect as that of a Fifty-seventh Street modiste;
their blouses, in some miraculous way, were of to-day's style,
down to the last detail of cuff or collar or stitching; their
hats were of the shape that the season demanded, set at the angle
Emma McChesney & Co. |
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 Mother by Owen Wister: Michigan--though this would have made no difference. Ethel had been
accustomed to a house several stories high, with hot and cold water in
most of them, and somebody to answer the door-bell."
"The door-bell!" exclaimed Ethel. "I could have gone without hearing
that."
"Yes, Ethel, only to hear the welkin ring would have been enough for you.
I know that you are sincere in thinking so. And the ringing welkin is all
we should have heard in Michigan. But the more truly a man loves a girl,
the less can he bear taking her from an easy to a hard life. I am sure
that all the men here agree with me."
There was a murmur and a nod from the men, and also from Mrs. Davenport.
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