| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: and she proved to me as I proved to him that, by my own showing, Love was
neither fair nor good. 'What do you mean, Diotima,' I said, 'is love then
evil and foul?' 'Hush,' she cried; 'must that be foul which is not fair?'
'Certainly,' I said. 'And is that which is not wise, ignorant? do you not
see that there is a mean between wisdom and ignorance?' 'And what may that
be?' I said. 'Right opinion,' she replied; 'which, as you know, being
incapable of giving a reason, is not knowledge (for how can knowledge be
devoid of reason? nor again, ignorance, for neither can ignorance attain
the truth), but is clearly something which is a mean between ignorance and
wisdom.' 'Quite true,' I replied. 'Do not then insist,' she said, 'that
what is not fair is of necessity foul, or what is not good evil; or infer
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Poems by Bronte Sisters: Prevail not o'er an earnest mind;
May torments strange or direst death
Nor trample truth, nor baffle faith.
Though such blood-drops should fall from me
As fell in old Gethsemane,
Welcome the anguish, so it gave
More strength to work--more skill to save.
And, oh! if brief must be my time,
If hostile hand or fatal clime
Cut short my course--still o'er my grave,
Lord, may thy harvest whitening wave.
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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 Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: "But what is the new Money-Act?"
The Professor brightened up again. "The Emperor started the thing,"
he said. "He wanted to make everybody in Outland twice as rich as he
was before just to make the new Government popular. Only there wasn't
nearly enough money in the Treasury to do it. So I suggested that he
might do it by doubling the value of every coin and bank-note in
Outland. It's the simplest thing possible. I wonder nobody ever
thought of it before! And you never saw such universal joy.
The shops are full from morning to night. Everybody's buying everything!"
"And how was the glorifying done?"
A sudden gloom overcast the Professor's jolly face. "They did it as I
Sylvie and Bruno |
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 Iron Puddler by James J. Davis: soot out of my eyes. For the next seven minutes I "thickened the
heat up" by adding iron oxide to the bath. This was in the form
of roll scale. The furnace continued in full blast till that was
melted. The liquid metal in the hearth is called slag. The iron
oxide is put in it to make it more basic for the chemical
reaction that is to take place. Adding the roll scale had cooled
the charge, and it was thick like hoecake batter. I now
thoroughly mixed it with a rabble which is like a long iron hoe.
"Snake bake a hoecake,
And lef' a frog to mind it;
Frog went away, an'
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