| 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: the name Socrates, which of us is the speaker?
ALCIBIADES: I am.
SOCRATES: Now let us put the case generally: whenever there is a question
and answer, who is the speaker,--the questioner or the answerer?
ALCIBIADES: I should say, Socrates, that the answerer was the speaker.
SOCRATES: And have I not been the questioner all through?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And you the answerer?
ALCIBIADES: Just so.
SOCRATES: Which of us, then, was the speaker?
ALCIBIADES: The inference is, Socrates, that I was the speaker.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: gymnastic, as justice does to medicine; and the two parts run into one
another, justice having to do with the same subject as legislation, and
medicine with the same subject as gymnastic, but with a difference. Now,
seeing that there are these four arts, two attending on the body and two on
the soul for their highest good; flattery knowing, or rather guessing their
natures, has distributed herself into four shams or simulations of them;
she puts on the likeness of some one or other of them, and pretends to be
that which she simulates, and having no regard for men's highest interests,
is ever making pleasure the bait of the unwary, and deceiving them into the
belief that she is of the highest value to them. Cookery simulates the
disguise of medicine, and pretends to know what food is the best for the
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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 Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: fury, and his fingers clenched until his nails bit into
the flesh.
Above, Tarzan watched in wonderment. He had been
curious to discover what all the pow-wow about his
pouch had meant. He wanted to see what the Arab would
do after the other had gone away, leaving the pouch
behind him, and, having satisfied his curiosity, he
would then have pounced upon Achmet Zek and taken the
pouch and his pretty pebbles away from him, for did
they not belong to Tarzan?
He saw the Arab now throw aside the empty pouch, and
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar |
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 A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? or if he ask an
egg, will he give him a scorpion? But if you know how to give
good gifts to your children, and you yourselves are not naturally
good, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give a
good spirit to all them that ask Him!"
V. Who is so hard and stone-like, that such mighty words ought
not to move him to pray with all confidence! joyfully and gladly?
But how many prayers must be reformed, if we are to pray aright
according to these words! Now, indeed, all churches and monastic
houses are full of praying and singing, but how does it happen
that so little improvement and benefit result from it, and things
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