| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: others who have neglected the duty of rescuing them have escaped in safety?
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: And to rescue another under such circumstances is honourable, in
respect of the attempt to save those whom we ought to save; and this is
courage?
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: But evil in respect of death and wounds?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the courage which is shown in the rescue is one thing, and
the death another?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln: for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live.
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate. . .we cannot consecrate. . .
we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead,
who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power
to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember,
what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining
before us. . .that from these honored dead we take increased devotion
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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 Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: after so many years, she WAS old, or almost; which was of course
true in still greater measure of her companion. If she was old, or
almost, John Marcher assuredly was, and yet it was her showing of
the lesson, not his own, that brought the truth home to him. His
surprises began here; when once they had begun they multiplied;
they came rather with a rush: it was as if, in the oddest way in
the world, they had all been kept back, sown in a thick cluster,
for the late afternoon of life, the time at which for people in
general the unexpected has died out.
One of them was that he should have caught himself--for he HAD so
done--REALLY wondering if the great accident would take form now as
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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 The Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: firm, and steady pace of one who is bound, indeed, upon important
business, but who entertains no doubt he can terminate his
affairs satisfactorily. But when out of hearing of the gentlemen
whom he had left, his step became so slow and irresolute, as to
correspond with his doubts and his fears. At length he paused in
an antechamber to collect his ideas, and form his plan of
argument, before approaching his daughter.
"In what more hopeless and inextricable dilemma was ever an
unfortunate man involved!" Such was the tenor of his
reflections.--"If we now fall to pieces by disunion, there can be
little doubt that the government will take my life as the prime
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