| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: senses; or is there some third or intermediate condition, in which he is
neither one nor the other?
ALCIBIADES: Decidedly not.
SOCRATES: He must be either sane or insane?
ALCIBIADES: So I suppose.
SOCRATES: Did you not acknowledge that madness was the opposite of
discretion?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And that there is no third or middle term between discretion and
indiscretion?
ALCIBIADES: 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 Little Britain by Washington Irving: the talk and detestation of the whole neighborhood ever since.
They could no longer be induced to play at Pope-Joan or blind-
man's-buff; they could endure no dances but quadrilles, which
nobody had ever heard of in Little Britain; and they took to
reading novels, talking bad French, and playing upon the piano.
Their brother, too, who had been articled to an attorney, set up
for a dandy and a critic, characters hitherto unknown in these
parts; and he confounded the worthy folks exceedingly by
talking about Kean, the opera, and the "Edinburgh Review."
What was still worse, the Lambs gave a grand ball, to which
they neglected to invite any of their old neighbors; but they had
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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 King James Bible: heavy.
MAT 26:44 And he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third
time, saying the same words.
MAT 26:45 Then cometh he to his disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep
on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of
man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
MAT 26:46 Rise, let us be going: behold, he is at hand that doth betray
me.
MAT 26:47 And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came,
and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief
priests and elders of the people.
King James Bible |
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 Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: streets the grass parking beside the walks oozed gray water.
It was prickly hot, yet the town was barren under the bleak
sky. Softened neither by snow nor by waving boughs the
houses squatted and scowled, revealed in their unkempt harshness.
As she dragged homeward Carol looked with distaste at her
clay-loaded rubbers, the smeared hem of her skirt. She passed
Lyman Cass's pinnacled, dark-red, hulking house. She waded
a streaky yellow pool. This morass was not her home, she
insisted. Her home, and her beautiful town, existed in her
mind. They had already been created. The task was done.
What she really had been questing was some one to share them
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