The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: SOCRATES: Clearly we have not yet answered the question, What is wealth?
That wealth must be useful, to be wealth at all,--thus much is acknowledged
by every one. But what particular thing is wealth, if not all things? Let
us pursue the argument in another way; and then we may perhaps find what we
are seeking. What is the use of wealth, and for what purpose has the
possession of riches been invented,--in the sense, I mean, in which drugs
have been discovered for the cure of disease? Perhaps in this way we may
throw some light on the question. It appears to be clear that whatever
constitutes wealth must be useful, and that wealth is one class of useful
things; and now we have to enquire, What is the use of those useful things
which constitute wealth? For all things probably may be said to be useful
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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 Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: fences, even those of fields. This Swedish house, thus protected
against the climate, stood on rising ground in the centre of an
immense courtyard. The windows were sheltered by those projecting
pent-house roofs supported by squared trunks of trees which give so
patriarchal an air to Northern dwellings. From beneath them the eye
could see the savage nudity of the Falberg, or compare the infinitude
of the open sea with the tiny drop of water in the foaming fiord; the
ear could hear the flowing of the Sieg, whose white sheet far away
looked motionless as it fell into its granite cup edged for miles
around with glaciers,--in short, from this vantage ground the whole
landscape whereon our simple yet superhuman drama was about to be
 Seraphita |