| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: and an adequate limit, of which we have often spoken, as well as a
presiding cause of no mean power, which orders and arranges years and
seasons and months, and may be justly called wisdom and mind?
PROTARCHUS: Most justly.
SOCRATES: And wisdom and mind cannot exist without soul?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: And in the divine nature of Zeus would you not say that there is
the soul and mind of a king, because there is in him the power of the
cause? And other gods have other attributes, by which they are pleased to
be called.
PROTARCHUS: Very true.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott: "Every baron in the country," said he, "now swore revenge for
this dreadful crime. They took arms with the relations and
brother-in-law of the murdered person, and the Children of the
Mist were hunted down, I believe, with as little mercy as they
had themselves manifested. Seventeen heads, the bloody trophies
of their vengeance, were distributed among the allies, and fed
the crows upon the gates of their castles. The survivors sought
out more distant wildernesses, to which they retreated."
"To your right hand, counter-march and retreat to your former
ground," said Captain Dalgetty; the military phrase having
produced the correspondent word of command; and then starting up,
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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 Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: disappointed in his hopes.
Yes, Bertie and Billy were astonished. But their astonishment did not
equal that of Oscar, who had answered many of the questions in the
Professor's own language. Oscar received seventy-five per cent for this
achievement--a good mark. But Billy's mark was eighty-six and Bertie's
ninety. "There is some mistake," said Oscar to them when they told him
; and he hastened to the Professor with his tale. "There is no
mistake," said the Professor. Oscar smiled with increased deference.
"But," he urged, "I assure you, sir, those young men knew absolutely
nothing. I was their tutor, and they knew nothing at all. I taught
them all their information myself." "In that case," replied 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 Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: to table together, shared the long evenings, and grew daily better
friends; until it seemed to him of a sudden that she was prying
about dangerous matters, that she had conceived a notion of his
guilt, that she watched him and tried him with questions. He drew
back from her company as men draw back from a precipice suddenly
discovered; and yet so strong was the attraction that he would
drift again and again into the old intimacy, and again and again be
startled back by some suggestive question or some inexplicable
meaning in her eye. So they lived at cross purposes, a life full
of broken dialogue, challenging glances, and suppressed passion;
until, one day, he saw the woman slipping from the house in a veil,
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