| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: difficulty in improvising any number of such orations. To praise the
Athenians among the Athenians was easy,--to praise them among the
Lacedaemonians would have been a much more difficult task. Socrates
himself has turned rhetorician, having learned of a woman, Aspasia, the
mistress of Pericles; and any one whose teachers had been far inferior to
his own--say, one who had learned from Antiphon the Rhamnusian--would be
quite equal to the task of praising men to themselves. When we remember
that Antiphon is described by Thucydides as the best pleader of his day,
the satire on him and on the whole tribe of rhetoricians is transparent.
The ironical assumption of Socrates, that he must be a good orator because
he had learnt of Aspasia, is not coarse, as Schleiermacher supposes, but is
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: search for the manuscript. It was soon found, for the directions
of old Melmoth were forcibly written, and strongly remembered. The
manuscript, old, tattered, and discolored, was taken from the very
drawer in which it was mentioned to be laid. Melmoth's hands felt
as cold as those of his dead uncle, when he drew the blotted pages
from their nook. He sat down to read,--there was a dead silence
through the house. Melmoth looked wistfully at the candles,
snuffed them, and still thought they looked dim, (perchance he
thought they burned blue, but such thought he kept to himself).
Certain it is, he often changed his posture, and would have changed
his chair, had there been more than one in the apartment.
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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 Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Now, at last, I saw the nature of the other monsters who
had come with the plant men in response to the weird calling
of the man upon the cliff's face. They were that most dreaded
of Martian creatures--great white apes of Barsoom.
My former experiences upon Mars had familiarized me
thoroughly with them and their methods, and I may say that
of all the fearsome and terrible, weird and grotesque inhabitants
of that strange world, it is the white apes that come nearest
to familiarizing me with the sensation of fear.
I think that the cause of this feeling which these apes
engender within me is due to their remarkable resemblance
The Gods of Mars |
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 Red Seal by Natalie Sumner Lincoln: fortunately saw Officer O'Ryan standing under the arc light across
the street. I called him and he arrested the prisoner."
Her simple statement evoked a nod of approval from the Assistant
District Attorney, and Rochester frowned as he waived his right to
cross-examine her. The next witness was Officer O'Ryan, and his
testimony confirmed Helen's.
"The prisoner was standing back among the coats in the closet," he
said. "My automatic against his ribs brought him out."
"Did you search your prisoner?" asked Rochester, as he took the
witness.
"Yes, sir.
The Red Seal |
