| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: pigments in nature which resembled the things imitated, and out of which
the picture is composed?
CRATYLUS: Impossible.
SOCRATES: No more could names ever resemble any actually existing thing,
unless the original elements of which they are compounded bore some degree
of resemblance to the objects of which the names are the imitation: And
the original elements are letters?
CRATYLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Let me now invite you to consider what Hermogenes and I were
saying about sounds. Do you agree with me that the letter rho is
expressive of rapidity, motion, and hardness? Were we right or wrong in
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from When the World Shook by H. Rider Haggard: salutes her. He says that the great war has endured for hundreds
of years between the Children of Wisdom fighting for absolute
rule and the common people of the earth fighting for liberty. In
that war many millions of the Sons of the Nations had perished,
brought to their death by fearful arts, by wizardries and by
plagues sown among them by the Sons of Wisdom. Yet they were
winning, for the glorious cities of the Sons of Wisdom were
destroyed and those who remained of them were driven to dwell in
the caves of the earth where with all their strength and magic
they could not increase, but faded like flowers in the dark.
"The Lord Oro asks what are the terms of peace proposed by the
 When the World Shook |