| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: be reconciled to your fate, be it what it may; and never find fault
with your condition, unless your complaining will benefit it.
Perseverance is a principle that should be commendable in those who have
judgment to govern it. I should never had been so successful in my
hunting excursions had I waited till the deer, by some magic dream,
had been drawn to the muzzle of the gun before I made an attempt to fire
at the game that dared my boldness in the wild forest. The great
mystery in hunting seems to be--a good marksman, a resolute mind,
a fixed determination, and my world for it, you will never return
home without sounding your horn with the breath of a new victory.
And so with every other undertaking. Be confident that your ammunition
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: superior, is called Ligonus, and is perhaps one of the most
beautiful and agreeable places in the world; the air is healthful
and temperate, and all the mountains, which are not very high,
shaded with cedars. They sow and reap here in every season, the
ground is always producing, and the fruits ripen throughout the
year; so great, so charming is the variety, that the whole region
seems a garden laid out and cultivated only to please. I doubt
whether even the imagination of a painter has yet conceived a
landscape as beautiful as I have seen. The forests have nothing
uncouth or savage, and seem only planted for shade and coolness.
Among a prodigious number of trees which fill them, there is one
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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 $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: of Trenton and Monmouth, and Bunker Hill, the proclamation of the
Declaration of Independence, Braddock's defeat, the throwing over
of the tea in Boston harbor, and the landing of the Pilgrims.
He died greatly respected, and was followed to the grave by a vast
concourse of people.
The faithful old servant is gone! We shall never see him more until
he turns up again. He has closed his long and splendid career
of dissolution, for the present, and sleeps peacefully, as only they sleep
who have earned their rest. He was in all respects a remarkable man.
He held his age better than any celebrity that has figured in history;
and the longer he lived the stronger and longer his memory grew.
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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 Charmides by Plato: offence to the reader. Greek has a freer and more frequent use of the
Interrogative, and is of a more passionate and emotional character, and
therefore lends itself with greater readiness to the dialogue form. Most
of the so-called English Dialogues are but poor imitations of Plato, which
fall very far short of the original. The breath of conversation, the
subtle adjustment of question and answer, the lively play of fancy, the
power of drawing characters, are wanting in them. But the Platonic
dialogue is a drama as well as a dialogue, of which Socrates is the central
figure, and there are lesser performers as well:--the insolence of
Thrasymachus, the anger of Callicles and Anytus, the patronizing style of
Protagoras, the self-consciousness of Prodicus and Hippias, are all part of
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