| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde: LORD GORING. But it is after seven, father, and my doctor says I
must not have any serious conversation after seven. It makes me talk
in my sleep.
LORD CAVERSHAM. Talk in your sleep, sir? What does that matter?
You are not married.
LORD GORING. No, father, I am not married.
LORD CAVERSHAM. Hum! That is what I have come to talk to you about,
sir. You have got to get married, and at once. Why, when I was your
age, sir, I had been an inconsolable widower for three months, and
was already paying my addresses to your admirable mother. Damme,
sir, it is your duty to get married. You can't be always living for
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot: objections, one of an intellectual, the other of a moral nature.
The first objection is, that a Flatlander, seeing a Line,
sees something that must be THICK to the eye as well as LONG
to the eye (otherwise it would not be visible, if it had not
some thickness); and consequently he ought (it is argued)
to acknowledge that his countrymen are not only long and broad,
but also (though doubtless in a very slight degree) THICK or HIGH.
This objection is plausible, and, to Spacelanders,
almost irresistible, so that, I confess, when I first heard it,
I knew not what to reply. But my poor old friend's answer
appears to me completely to meet it.
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Under the Andes by Rex Stout: I called to Harry, and at the same instant heard his shout of
consternation as he came running toward me, holding something in
his hand.
"They've got her! Look! Look at this! I found it on the
ground over there."
He held the thing in his hand out before me.
It was an Inca spear.
Chapter XXI.
THE MIDST OF THE ENEMY.
Harry and I stood gazing at each other blankly in the
semidarkness of the cavern.
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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 Euthydemus by Plato: has such a nature? Not the knowledge which is required in any particular
art; nor again the art of the composer of speeches, who knows how to write
them, but cannot speak them, although he too must be admitted to be a kind
of enchanter of wild animals. Neither is the knowledge which we are
seeking the knowledge of the general. For the general makes over his prey
to the statesman, as the huntsman does to the cook, or the taker of quails
to the keeper of quails; he has not the use of that which he acquires. The
two enquirers, Cleinias and Socrates, are described as wandering about in a
wilderness, vainly searching after the art of life and happiness. At last
they fix upon the kingly art, as having the desired sort of knowledge. But
the kingly art only gives men those goods which are neither good nor evil:
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