| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anabasis by Xenophon: Xenophon the Athenian was born 431 B.C. He was a
pupil of Socrates. He marched with the Spartans,
and was exiled from Athens. Sparta gave him land
and property in Scillus, where he lived for many
years before having to move once more, to settle
in Corinth. He died in 354 B.C.
The Anabasis is his story of the march to Persia
to aid Cyrus, who enlisted Greek help to try and
take the throne from Artaxerxes, and the ensuing
return of the Greeks, in which Xenophon played a
leading role. This occurred between 401 B.C. and
Anabasis |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: principle of motion, whereas in the Republic the argument turns on the
natural continuance of the soul, which, if not destroyed by her own proper
evil, can hardly be destroyed by any other. The soul of man in the Timaeus
is derived from the Supreme Creator, and either returns after death to her
kindred star, or descends into the lower life of an animal. The Apology
expresses the same view as the Phaedo, but with less confidence; there the
probability of death being a long sleep is not excluded. The Theaetetus
also describes, in a digression, the desire of the soul to fly away and be
with God--'and to fly to him is to be like him.' The Symposium may be
observed to resemble as well as to differ from the Phaedo. While the first
notion of immortality is only in the way of natural procreation or of
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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 Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: en go sof', en lead de way; en if you gives a sign in dis house,
or if anybody comes up to you in de street, I's gwine to jam it
right into you. Chambers, does you b'lieve me when I says dat?"
"It's no use to bother me with that question. I know your word's good."
"Yes, it's diff'rent from yo'n! Shet de light out en move along--
here's de key."
They were not followed. Tom trembled every time a late
straggler brushed by them on the street, and half expected to
feel the cold steel in his back. Roxy was right at his heels and
always in reach. After tramping a mile they reached a wide
vacancy on the deserted wharves, and in this dark and rainy
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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 Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: social instinct, with any exceptional width of human sympathy and any
instinctive comprehension; then, it is not merely possible, but certain,
that, in the ages that are coming, in which the labour of the human race
will be not mainly destructive but conservative, in which the building up
and developing of humanity, and not continually the inter-destruction of
part by part, will be the dominant activity of the race, that woman as
woman, and by right of that wherein she differs from the male, will have an
all-important part to play in the activity of the race.
The matter is one of curious and subtle interest, but what practically
concerns the human race is, not which of the two sexual halves which must
always coexist is best fitted to excel in certain human labours in this or
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