| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: recollection. And therefore we ought not to listen to this sophistical
argument about the impossibility of enquiry: for it will make us idle; and
is sweet only to the sluggard; but the other saying will make us active and
inquisitive. In that confiding, I will gladly enquire with you into the
nature of virtue.
MENO: Yes, Socrates; but what do you mean by saying that we do not learn,
and that what we call learning is only a process of recollection? Can you
teach me how this is?
SOCRATES: I told you, Meno, just now that you were a rogue, and now you
ask whether I can teach you, when I am saying that there is no teaching,
but only recollection; and thus you imagine that you will involve me in a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: last on the point of laying its hand on the agents of this horrible
intrigue.
The Baron of Nucingen, on recognizing the evidence of poison, and
failing to find his seven hundred and fifty thousand francs, imagined
that one of two persons whom he greatly disliked--either Paccard or
Europe--was guilty of the crime. In his first impulse of rage he flew
to the prefecture of police. This was a stroke of a bell that called
up all Corentin's men. The officials of the prefecture, the legal
profession, the chief of the police, the justice of the peace, the
examining judge,--all were astir. By nine in the evening three medical
men were called in to perform an autopsy on poor Esther, and inquiries
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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 Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: Carol smiled confidently at him, and peered down the empty
road toward town. Only heat-waves and dust and dusty
weeds.
At half-past three no one had come, and the grocery boy
reluctantly got out, cranked his Ford, glared at them in a
disillusioned manner, and rattled away. The small boy and his
sister ate grass and sighed.
The players pretended to be exhilarated by practising
service, but they startled at each dust-cloud from a motor car.
None of the cars turned into the meadow-none till a quarter
to four, when Kennicott drove in.
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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 Royalty Restored/London Under Charles II by J. Fitzgerald Molloy: for that end recommended also to them a certain pocket weapon,
which for its design and efficacy had the honour to be called a
protestant flail. It was for street and crowd work; and the
engine lurking perdue in a coat pocket, might readily sally out
to execution, and so, by clearing a great hall, or piazza or so,
carry an election by a choice of polling called knocking down.
The handle resembled a farrier's blood stick, and the fall was
joined to the end by a strong nervous ligature, that in its swing
fell just short of the hand, and was made of LIGNUM VITAE, or
rather, as the poet termed it, MORTIS."
One day, whilst the town was in this state of consternation,
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