| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: you will at all hazards be a pupil of Protagoras, and are prepared to
expend all the property of yourself and of your friends in carrying out at
any price this determination, although, as you admit, you do not know him,
and have never spoken with him: and you call him a Sophist, but are
manifestly ignorant of what a Sophist is; and yet you are going to commit
yourself to his keeping.
When he heard me say this, he replied: No other inference, Socrates, can
be drawn from your words.
I proceeded: Is not a Sophist, Hippocrates, one who deals wholesale or
retail in the food of the soul? To me that appears to be his nature.
And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul?
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell: His son was a strong, tall, bold man; they called him Samson,
and he used to boast that he had never found a horse that could throw him.
There was no gentleness in him, as there was in his father,
but only hardness, a hard voice, a hard eye, a hard hand; and I felt
from the first that what he wanted was to wear all the spirit out of me,
and just make me into a quiet, humble, obedient piece of horseflesh.
`Horseflesh'! Yes, that is all that he thought about,"
and Ginger stamped her foot as if the very thought of him made her angry.
Then she went on:
"If I did not do exactly what he wanted he would get put out,
and make me run round with that long rein in the training field
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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 The Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne: this chair with my back to the fire--there's been a strong frost
these two last nights, and I can't get it out of my bones; the
celery will be just the ticket--I'm going to sit here, and you
are going to stand there, Morris Finsbury, and play butler.'
'But, Johnny, I'm so hungry myself,' pleaded Morris.
'You can have what I leave,' said Vance. 'You're just beginning
to pay your score, my daisy; I owe you one-pound-ten; don't you
rouse the British lion!' There was something indescribably
menacing in the face and voice of the Great Vance as he uttered
these words, at which the soul of Morris withered. 'There!'
resumed the feaster, 'give us a glass of the fizz to start with.
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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 Mansion by Henry van Dyke: dining-room. He felt strangely old and dull. The portraits of
beautiful women by Lawrence and Reynolds and Raeburn, which had
often
seemed like real company to him, looked remote and uninteresting.
He fancied something cold and almost unfriendly in their
expression,
as if they were staring through him or beyond him. They cared
nothing for
his principles, his hopes, his disappointments, his successes;
they belonged to another world, in which he had no place. At
this he felt
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