| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: it was the rendezvous of that apocryphal population which is to be
found in nearly all such portions of a city, where two or three Jews
have gained an ascendency.
At the corner of one of these gloomy streets in the livelier half of
the quarter, there existed from 1815 to 1823, and perhaps later, a
public-house kept by a woman commonly called Mere Cognette. The house
itself was tolerably well built, in courses of white stone, with the
intermediary spaces filled in with ashlar and cement, one storey high
with an attic above. Over the door was an enormous branch of pine,
looking as though it were cast in Florentine bronze. As if this symbol
were not explanatory enough, the eye was arrested by the blue of 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 Parmenides by Plato: And it is quite inconsistent with Plato's own relation to the Eleatics.
For of all the pre-Socratic philosophers, he speaks of them with the
greatest respect. But he could hardly have passed upon them a more
unmeaning slight than to ascribe to their great master tenets the reverse
of those which he actually held.
Two preliminary remarks may be made. First, that whatever latitude we may
allow to Plato in bringing together by a 'tour de force,' as in the
Phaedrus, dissimilar themes, yet he always in some way seeks to find a
connexion for them. Many threads join together in one the love and
dialectic of the Phaedrus. We cannot conceive that the great artist would
place in juxtaposition two absolutely divided and incoherent subjects. And
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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 Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: appears not to have been discreetly made; your house has somewhat
of a gloomy aspect."--"Hold you content, Cousin," replied the
other; "I shall take order that you like it better, when you have
been some time a dweller therein." Some attendants of a mean
appearance, and with most suspicious visages, awaited them on their
entrance, and they ascended a narrow staircase, which led to a room
meanly furnished. "Wait here," said the kinsman, to the man who
accompanied them, "till I go for company to divertise my cousin in
his loneliness." They were left alone. Stanton took no notice of
his companion, but as usual seized the first book near him, and
began to read. It was a volume in manuscript,--they were then much
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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 Danny's Own Story by Don Marquis: twenty men, they was--with his head down.
He caught two fellers, one in each hand, and he
cracked their heads together, and he caught two
more, and done the same. But he orter never
took his back away from that fence. The hull
gang closed in on him, and down he went at the
bottom of a pile. I was awful busy myself, but
I seen that pile moving and churning. Then I
made a big mistake myself. I kicked a feller in
the stomach, and another feller caught my leg,
and down I went. Fur a half a minute I never
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