| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: some, of translucent azure or rose, seem in the flood the shadows
or ghosts of huge campanulate flowers;--others have the semblance
of strange living vegetables,--great milky tubers, just beginning
to sprout. But woe to the human skin grazed by those shadowy
sproutings and spectral stamens!--the touch of glowing iron is
not more painful... Within an hour or two after their appearance
all these tremulous jellies vanish mysteriously as they came.
Perhaps, if a bold swimmer, you may venture out alone a long
way--once! Not twice!--even in company. As the water deepens
beneath you, and you feel those ascending wave-currents of
coldness arising which bespeak profundity, you will also begin to
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: and nothing more; he was dangling his legs contentedly
back and forth, and wheezing the music of "Camptown Races"
out of a paper-overlaid comb which he was pressing
against his mouth; by him lay a new jewsharp, a new top,
and solid india-rubber ball, a handful of painted marbles,
five pounds of "store" candy, and a well-gnawed slab of
gingerbread as big and as thick as a volume of sheet-music.
He had sold the skeleton to a traveling quack for three
dollars and was enjoying the result!
Just as we had finished talking about skeletons and were
drifting into the subject of fossils, Harris and I heard
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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 Euthyphro by Plato: responsibility of such a prosecution, he must have been perfectly informed
of the nature of piety and impiety; and as he is going to be tried for
impiety himself, he thinks that he cannot do better than learn of Euthyphro
(who will be admitted by everybody, including the judges, to be an
unimpeachable authority) what piety is, and what is impiety. What then is
piety?
Euthyphro, who, in the abundance of his knowledge, is very willing to
undertake all the responsibility, replies: That piety is doing as I do,
prosecuting your father (if he is guilty) on a charge of murder; doing as
the gods do--as Zeus did to Cronos, and Cronos to Uranus.
Socrates has a dislike to these tales of mythology, and he fancies that
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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 Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: drawn by tame geese, flew over infinite regions, shedding her
influence in due places, till at length she arrived at her beloved
island of Britain; but in hovering over its metropolis, what
blessings did she not let fall upon her seminaries of Gresham and
Covent-garden! And now she reached the fatal plain of St. James's
library, at what time the two armies were upon the point to engage;
where, entering with all her caravan unseen, and landing upon a
case of shelves, now desert, but once inhabited by a colony of
virtuosos, she stayed awhile to observe the posture of both armies.
But here the tender cares of a mother began to fill her thoughts
and move in her breast: for at the head of a troup of Modern
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