| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: that was, sent her two daughters to take care of me; and another
family which had taken notice of me when I was the little
gentlewoman, and had given me work to do, sent for me after
her, so that I was mightily made of, as we say; nay, and they
were not a little angry, especially madam the Mayoress, that
her friend had taken me away from her, as she called it; for,
as she said, I was hers by right, she having been the first that
took any notice of me. But they that had me would not part
with me; and as for me, though I should have been very well
treated with any of the others, yet I could not be better than
where I was.
Moll Flanders |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Amazing Interlude by Mary Roberts Rinehart: "If only I spoke French!"
"You will learn. And in the meantime, mademoiselle, I have taken the
liberty of finding you a servant - a young peasant woman. And you will
also have a soldier always on guard."
Something that had been in the back of Sara Lee's mind for some time
suddenly went away. She had been thinking of Aunt Harriet and the Ladies'
Aid Society of the Methodist Church. She had, in fact, been wondering
how they would feel when they learned that she was living alone, the
only woman among thousands of men. It had, oddly enough, never occurred
to her before.
"You have thought of everything," she said gratefully.
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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 Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: luxuries though he did not wish it; Solon could judge of him well enough
by the first sight of him; and, when he returned from viewing all,
Croesus asked him if ever he had known a happier man than he. And when
Solon answered that he had known one Tellus, a fellow-citizen of his
own, and told him that this Tellus had been an honest man, had had good
children, a competent estate, and died bravely in battle for his
country, Croesus took him for an ill-bred fellow and a fool, for not
measuring happiness by the abundance of gold and silver, and preferring
the life and death of a private and mean man before so much power and
empire. He asked him, however, again, if, besides Tellus, he knew any
other man more happy. And Solon replying, Yes, Cleobis and Biton, who
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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 Crito by Plato: rhetorician would have had much to say upon that point.' It may be
observed however that Plato never intended to answer the question of
casuistry, but only to exhibit the ideal of patient virtue which refuses to
do the least evil in order to avoid the greatest, and to show his master
maintaining in death the opinions which he had professed in his life. Not
'the world,' but the 'one wise man,' is still the paradox of Socrates in
his last hours. He must be guided by reason, although her conclusions may
be fatal to him. The remarkable sentiment that the wicked can do neither
good nor evil is true, if taken in the sense, which he means, of moral
evil; in his own words, 'they cannot make a man wise or foolish.'
This little dialogue is a perfect piece of dialectic, in which granting the
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