| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: which appears in the Theaetetus, Philebus, Sophist, Politicus, Parmenides,
Timaeus. In the first stage of his philosophy Plato attributed Ideas to
all things, at any rate to all things which have classes or common notions:
these he supposed to exist only by participation in them. In the later
Dialogues he no longer included in them manufactured articles and ideas of
relation, but restricted them to 'types of nature,' and having become
convinced that the many cannot be parts of the one, for the idea of
participation in them he substituted imitation of them. To quote Dr.
Jackson's own expressions,--'whereas in the period of the Republic and the
Phaedo, it was proposed to pass through ontology to the sciences, in the
period of the Parmenides and the Philebus, it is proposed to pass through
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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 Cavalry General by Xenophon: animal that kicks when mounted must be cast; since brutes of that sort
may often do more mischief than the foe himself. Lastly, you must pay
attention to the horses' feet, and see that they will stand being
ridden over rough ground. A horse, one knows, is practically useless
where he cannot be galloped without suffering.
[5] Lit. "in process of being raised."
[6] Or, "to press home a charge a l'outrance, or retire from the field
unscathed."
And now, supposing that your horses are all that they ought to be,
like pains must be applied to train the men themselves. The trooper,
in the first place, must be able to spring on horseback easily--a feat
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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 Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: himself against it.
"I think," he said, "I'll have that whisky now."
Bassett poured him a small drink, and took a turn about the room
while he drank it. He was perplexed and apprehensive. Strange
as the story was, he was convinced that he had heard the truth.
He had, now and then, run across men who came back after a brief
disappearance, with a cock and bull story of forgetting who they
were, and because nearly always these men vanished at the peak of
some crisis they had always been open to suspicion. Perhaps, poor
devils, they had been telling the truth after all. So the mind
shut down, eh? Closed like a grave over the unbearable!
The Breaking Point |
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 Exiles by Honore de Balzac: his wife's business was carried on, through which the lodgers were
obliged to pass on their way to their own rooms up a stairway like a
mill-ladder. Behind this were a kitchen and a bedroom, with a view
over the Seine. A tiny garden, reclaimed from the waters, displayed at
the foot of this modest dwelling its beds of cabbages and onions, and
a few rose-bushes, sheltered by palings, forming a sort of hedge. A
little structure of lath and mud served as a kennel for a big dog, the
indispensable guardian of so lonely a dwelling. Beyond this kennel was
a little plot, where the hens cackled whose eggs were sold to the
Canons. Here and there on this patch of earth, muddy or dry according
to the whimsical Parisian weather, a few trees grew, constantly lashed
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