| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: Why should he live to remember, to suffer, to agonize? Was not
Ramirez wiser?
How long the contest within him lasted, he never knew; but ere it
was done, he had become, in more ways than one, a changed man.
For the first,--though not indeed for the last time,--something
of the deeper and nobler comprehension of human weakness and of
human suffering had been revealed to him,--something of that
larger knowledge without which the sense of duty can never be
fully acquired, nor the understanding of unselfish goodness, nor
the spirit of tenderness. The suicide is not a coward; he is an
egotist.
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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 King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: with no Golden River to seek for. Level lines of dewy mist lay
stretched along the valley, out of which rose the massy mountains,
their lower cliffs in pale gray shadow, hardly distinguishable from
the floating vapor but gradually ascending till they caught the
sunlight, which ran in sharp touches of ruddy color along the
angular crags, and pierced, in long, level rays, through their
fringes of spearlike pine. Far above shot up red, splintered masses
of castellated rock, jagged and shivered into myriads of fantastic
forms, with here and there a streak of sunlit snow traced down their
chasms like a line of forked lightning; and far beyond and far above
all these, fainter than the morning cloud but purer and changeless,
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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 Master of the World by Jules Verne: was scarce possible, he must have come there from outside. Lake
Kirdall, however, has no connection with any other waters. If this
lake were situated near any of the oceans, there might be
subterranean canals; but in the center of America, and at the height
of some thousands of feet above sea-level, this is not possible. In
short, here is another riddle not easy to solve, and it is much
easier to point out the impossibility of false explanations, than to
discover the true one.
"Is it possible that a submarine boat is being experimented with
beneath the lake? Such boats are no longer impossible today. Some
years ago, at Bridgeport, Connecticut, there was launched a boat, The
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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 The Apology by Xenophon: place, when called upon to suggest a counter-penalty,[42] he would
neither do so himself nor suffer his friends to do so for him, but
went so far as to say that to propose a counter-penalty was like a
confession of guilt. And afterwards, when his companions wished to
steal him out of prison,[43] he would not follow their lead, but would
seem to have treated the idea as a jest, by asking "whether they
happened to know of some place outside Attica where death was
forbidden to set foot?"
[40] {sunagoreuein}, L. and S. cf Thuc. vi. 6, "partisans," viii. 84,
"pleaded the case of" (Jowett).
[41] Or, "laid the greatest stress of not being guilty of impiety";
The Apology |
