| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter by Beatrix Potter: the lock; the rabbits below could
hear it. Mr. Tod opened the door
cautiously and went in.
The sight that met Mr. Tod's eyes
in Mr. Tod's kitchen made Mr. Tod
furious. There was Mr. Tod's chair,
and Mr. Tod's pie dish, and his
knife and fork and mustard and
salt cellar, and his tablecloth, that
he had left folded up in the dresser
--all set out for supper (or breakfast)
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Euthyphro by Plato: his trial for impiety. But before the trial begins, Plato would like to
put the world on their trial, and convince them of ignorance in that very
matter touching which Socrates is accused. An incident which may perhaps
really have occurred in the family of Euthyphro, a learned Athenian diviner
and soothsayer, furnishes the occasion of the discussion.
This Euthyphro and Socrates are represented as meeting in the porch of the
King Archon. (Compare Theaet.) Both have legal business in hand.
Socrates is defendant in a suit for impiety which Meletus has brought
against him (it is remarked by the way that he is not a likely man himself
to have brought a suit against another); and Euthyphro too is plaintiff in
an action for murder, which he has brought against his own father. The
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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 Finished by H. Rider Haggard: "No, I could scarcely expect to yet, but why do you ask?"
He smiled in his droll fashion and replied, "Because, interesting
as this household is in sundry ways, I think it is about time
that we, or at any rate that I, got out of it."
"Your leg isn't fit to travel yet, Anscombe, although Rodd says
that all the symptoms are very satisfactory."
"Yes, but to tell you the truth I am experiencing other symptoms
quite unknown to that beloved physician and so unfamiliar to
myself that I attribute them to the influences of the locality.
Altitude affects the heart, does it not, and this house stands
high."
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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 Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: told the lady that at that moment in Angouleme there was "another
sublime child," a young poet, a rising star whose glory surpassed the
whole Parisian galaxy, though he knew it not. A great man of the
future had been born in L'Houmeau! The headmaster of the school had
shown the Baron some admirable verses. The poor and humble lad was a
second Chatterton, with none of the political baseness and ferocious
hatred of the great ones of earth that led his English prototype to
turn pamphleteer and revile his benefactors. Mme. de Bargeton in her
little circle of five or six persons, who were supposed to share her
tastes for art and letters, because this one scraped a fiddle, and
that splashed sheets of white paper, more or less, with sepia, and the
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