| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: may be the friend of one who is not his friend, or who may be his enemy,
when he loves that which does not love him or which even hates him. And he
may be the enemy of one who is not his enemy, and is even his friend: for
example, when he hates that which does not hate him, or which even loves
him.
That appears to be true.
But if the lover is not a friend, nor the beloved a friend, nor both
together, what are we to say? Whom are we to call friends to one another?
Do any remain?
Indeed, Socrates, I cannot find any.
But, O Menexenus! I said, may we not have been altogether wrong in our
Lysis |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: - never, on my honour, to try again. So rest for ever - and let
ME!"
That, for Brydon, was the deep sense of this last demonstration -
solemn, measured, directed, as he felt it to be. He brought it to
a close, he turned away; and now verily he knew how deeply he had
been stirred. He retraced his steps, taking up his candle, burnt,
he observed, well-nigh to the socket, and marking again, lighten it
as he would, the distinctness of his footfall; after which, in a
moment, he knew himself at the other side of the house. He did
here what he had not yet done at these hours - he opened half a
casement, one of those in the front, and let in the air of the
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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 Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: amusement? Or will you be in earnest? Will you learn--I say it
openly--from the noble chairman, how easy it is to be in earnest
in life; how every one of you, amid all the artificial
complications of English society in the nineteenth century, can
find a work to do, a noble work to do, a chivalrous work to do--
just as chivalrous as if you lived in any old magic land, such as
Spenser talked of in his "Faerie Queene;" how you can be as true a
knight-errant or lady-errant in the present century, as if you had
lived far away in the dark ages of violence and rapine? Will you,
I ask, learn this? Will you learn to be in earnest; and to use
the position, and the station, and the talent that God has given
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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 Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: country-side, one Dickieson, they took with them to be their guide, and
dear he paid for it! Of a sudden in the ford of the Broken Dykes, this
vermin clan fell on the laird, six to one, and him three parts asleep,
having drunk hard. But it is ill to catch an Elliott.
For a while, in the night and the black water that was deep as to his
saddle-girths, he wrought with his staff like a smith at his stithy, and
great was the sound of oaths and blows. With that the ambuscade was
burst, and he rode for home with a pistol-ball in him, three knife
wounds, the loss of his front teeth, a broken rib and bridle, and a
dying horse. That was a race with death that the laird rode! In the
mirk night, with his broken bridle and his head swimming, he dug his
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