| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: not prefer to have those who voluntarily do wrong and make mistakes, and
are they not better in their mistakes than those who commit them
involuntarily?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And should we not desire to have our own minds in the best state
possible?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And will our minds be better if they do wrong and make mistakes
voluntarily or involuntarily?
HIPPIAS: O, Socrates, it would be a monstrous thing to say that those who
do wrong voluntarily are better than those who do wrong involuntarily!
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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 Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: position on the morrow.
Only--what was the alternative? The alternative, apparently,
was Coral Hicks. He glanced down the line of diners, beginning
with the tall lean countenance of the Princess Mother, with its
small inquisitive eyes perched as high as attic windows under a
frizzled thatch of hair and a pediment of uncleaned diamonds;
passed on to the vacuous and overfed or fashionably haggard
masks of the ladies next in rank; and finally caught, between
branching orchids, a distant glimpse of Miss Hicks.
In contrast with the others, he thought, she looked surprisingly
noble. Her large grave features made her appear like an old
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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 Aeneid by Virgil: Th' imperious looks of some proud Grecian dame;
Or, stooping to the victor's lust, disgrace
My goddess mother, or my royal race.
And now, farewell! The parent of the gods
Restrains my fleeting soul in her abodes:
I trust our common issue to your care.'
She said, and gliding pass'd unseen in air.
I strove to speak: but horror tied my tongue;
And thrice about her neck my arms I flung,
And, thrice deceiv'd, on vain embraces hung.
Light as an empty dream at break of day,
Aeneid |
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 Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: that I wouldn't throw away the chance; so I fell off a point,
steadied my helm, and went for him. You should have heard me whiz,
and seen the electric fur fly! In about a minute and a half I was
fringed out with an electrical nimbus that flamed around for miles
and miles and lit up all space like broad day. The comet was
burning blue in the distance, like a sickly torch, when I first
sighted him, but he begun to grow bigger and bigger as I crept up
on him. I slipped up on him so fast that when I had gone about
150,000,000 miles I was close enough to be swallowed up in the
phosphorescent glory of his wake, and I couldn't see anything for
the glare. Thinks I, it won't do to run into him, so I shunted to
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