| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: best for him to do, would ever have dared to venture on such a crime?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Nor would any one else, I fancy?
ALCIBIADES: No.
SOCRATES: That ignorance is bad then, it would appear, which is of the
best and does not know what is best?
ALCIBIADES: So I think, at least.
SOCRATES: And both to the person who is ignorant and everybody else?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Let us take another case. Suppose that you were suddenly to get
into your head that it would be a good thing to kill Pericles, your kinsman
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Light of Western Stars by Zane Grey: chair, head against the wall, and as he gaped at Danny the old
smile began to transform his face.
"Lord, Danny if you hevn't been an' gone an' struck it rich!"
Danny regarded Stillwell with lofty condescension.
"Some rich," he said. "Now, Bill, what've we got here, say,
offhand?"
"Oh, Lord, Danny! I'm afraid to say. Look, Miss Majesty, jest
look at the gold. I've lived among prospectors an' gold-mines
fer thirty years, an' I never seen the beat of this."
"The Lost Mine of the Padres!" cried Danny, in stentorian voice.
"An' it belongs to me!"
The Light of Western Stars |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: up they consult me. The housekeeper is a fool, and now that the
house doctor's gone--"
"Gone! Who's looking after the patients?"
"Well, most of them have been here before," I explained, "and I
know their treatment--the kind of baths and all that."
"Oh, YOU know the treatment!" he said, eying me. "And why did
the house doctor go?"
"He ordered Mr. Moody to take his spring water hot. Mr. Moody's
spring water has been ordered cold for eleven years, and I
refused to change. It was between the doctor and me, Mr. Van
Alstyne."
|
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 Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: Science at the University of Edinburgh in 1877, and afterwards
studied brilliantly at Bonn. On his return to India he founded
the Nizam College at Hyderabad, and has since laboured
incessantly, and at great personal sacrifice, in the cause of
education.
Sarojini was the eldest of a large family, all of whom were
taught English at an early age. "I," she writes, "was stubborn
and refused to speak it. So one day when I was nine years old my
father punished me--the only time I was ever punished--by
shutting me in a room alone for a whole day. I came out of it a
full-blown linguist. I have never spoken any other language to
|
