| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: islands. All was poetry pure and simple. The music itself was as
complex as our own, though constructed on an entirely different
basis; once or twice I was startled by a bit of something very like
the best English sacred music, but it was only for an instant. At
last there was a longer pause, and this time the dancers were all
on their feet. As the drama went on, the interest grew. The
performers appealed to each other, to the audience, to the heaven
above; they took counsel with each other, the conspirators drew
together in a knot; it was just an opera, the drums coming in at
proper intervals, the tenor, baritone, and bass all where they
should be - except that the voices were all of the same calibre. A
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw: another for perhaps a few months in twenty years, we shall never
meet: thats all.
MRS WARREN [her voice stifled in tears] Vivie: I meant to have
been more with you: I did indeed.
VIVIE. It's no use, mother: I am not to be changed by a few
cheap tears and entreaties any more than you are, I daresay.
MRS WARREN [wildly] Oh, you call a mother's tears cheap.
VIVIE. They cost you nothing; and you ask me to give you the
peace and quietness of my whole life in exchange for them. What
use would my company be to you if you could get it? What have we
two in common that could make either of us happy together?
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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 Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: the brandling, are the chief; and especially the first for a great Trout,
and the latter for a less. There be also of lob-worms, some called
squirrel-tails, a worm that has a red head, a streak down the back, and a
broad tail, which are noted to be the best, because they are the toughest
and most lively, and live longest in the water; for you are to know that a
dead worm is but a dead bait, and like to catch nothing, compared to a
lively, quick, stirring worm. And for a brandling, he is usually found in
an old dunghill, or some very rotten place near to it, but most usually in
cow-dung, or hog's-dung, rather than horse-dung, which is somewhat
too hot and dry for that worm. But the best of them are to be found in
the bark of the tanners, which they cast up in heaps after they have used
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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 Theaetetus by Plato: processes of his individual mind. He may learn much about his own
character and about the character of others, if he will 'make his mind sit
down' and look at itself in the glass. The great, if not the only use of
such a study is a practical one,--to know, first, human nature, and,
secondly, our own nature, as it truly is.
(3) Hence it is important that we should conceive of the mind in the
noblest and simplest manner. While acknowledging that language has been
the greatest factor in the formation of human thought, we must endeavour to
get rid of the disguises, oppositions, contradictions, which arise out of
it. We must disengage ourselves from the ideas which the customary use of
words has implanted in us. To avoid error as much as possible when we are
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