| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: mode of study. Persons usually pick up a little philosophy in early youth,
and in the intervals of business, but they never master the real
difficulty, which is dialectic. Later, perhaps, they occasionally go to a
lecture on philosophy. Years advance, and the sun of philosophy, unlike
that of Heracleitus, sets never to rise again. This order of education
should be reversed; it should begin with gymnastics in youth, and as the
man strengthens, he should increase the gymnastics of his soul. Then, when
active life is over, let him finally return to philosophy. 'You are in
earnest, Socrates, but the world will be equally earnest in withstanding
you--no more than Thrasymachus.' Do not make a quarrel between
Thrasymachus and me, who were never enemies and are now good friends
The Republic |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Burning Daylight by Jack London: river log-rafts swinging into the bank in the big eddy just above
Moosehide Mountain. Gold, even on the scales, was, after all, an
abstraction. It represented things and the power to do. But the
sawmills were the things themselves, concrete and tangible, and
they were things that were a means to the doing of more things.
They were dreams come true, hard and indubitable realizations of
fairy gossamers.
With the summer rush from the Outside came special correspondents
for the big newspapers and magazines, and one and all, using
unlimited space, they wrote Daylight up; so that, so far as the
world was concerned, Daylight loomed the largest figure in
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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 Confidence by Henry James: He took long walks, rambled on the beach, along the base
of the cliffs and among the brown sea-caves, and he thought
a good deal of certain incidents which have figured at an earlier
stage of this narrative. He had forbidden himself the future,
as an object of contemplation, and it was therefore a matter
of necessity that his imagination should take refuge among
the warm and familiar episodes of the past. He wondered
why Mrs. Vivian should have left the place so suddenly,
and was of course struck with the analogy between this
incident and her abrupt departure from Baden. It annoyed him,
it troubled him, but it by no means rekindled the alarm he had
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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 Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: their heads, in symbol of their flowery union. When the priest
had spoken, therefore, a riotous uproar burst from the rout of
monstrous figures.
"Begin you the stave, reverend Sir," cried they all; "and never
did the woods ring to such a merry peal as we of the Maypole
shall send up!"
Immediately a prelude of pipe, cithern, and viol, touched with
practised minstrelsy, began to play from a neighboring thicket,
in such a mirthful cadence that the boughs of the Maypole
quivered to the sound. But the May Lord, he of the gilded staff,
chancing to look into his Lady's eyes, was wonder struck at the
Twice Told Tales |
