| 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: 'that he who is true is also false,' remind us of the interpretation by
Socrates of Simonides in the Protagoras, and of similar reasonings in the
first book of the Republic. The discrepancies which Socrates discovers in
the words of Achilles are perhaps as great as those discovered by some of
the modern separatists of the Homeric poems...
At last, Socrates having caught Hippias in the toils of the voluntary and
involuntary, is obliged to confess that he is wandering about in the same
labyrinth; he makes the reflection on himself which others would make upon
him (compare Protagoras). He does not wonder that he should be in a
difficulty, but he wonders at Hippias, and he becomes sensible of the
gravity of the situation, when ordinary men like himself can no longer go
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: is a proof that God has given the art of divination not to the wisdom, but
to the foolishness of man. No man, when in his wits, attains prophetic
truth and inspiration; but when he receives the inspired word, either his
intelligence is enthralled in sleep, or he is demented by some distemper or
possession. And he who would understand what he remembers to have been
said, whether in a dream or when he was awake, by the prophetic and
inspired nature, or would determine by reason the meaning of the
apparitions which he has seen, and what indications they afford to this man
or that, of past, present or future good and evil, must first recover his
wits. But, while he continues demented, he cannot judge of the visions
which he sees or the words which he utters; the ancient saying is very
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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 Macbeth by William Shakespeare: I dare do all that may become a man,
Who dares do more, is none
La. What Beast was't then
That made you breake this enterprize to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man:
And to be more then what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time, nor place
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:
They haue made themselues, and that their fitnesse now
Do's vnmake you. I haue giuen Sucke, and know
How tender 'tis to loue the Babe that milkes me,
Macbeth |
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 Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain: person than a live one, his eyes was so hollow and he
looked so thin and so mournful. Benny she set on one side
of him and Aunt Sally on the other, and they had veils on,
and was full of trouble. But Tom he set by our lawyer,
and had his finger in everywheres, of course. The lawyer
let him, and the judge let him. He 'most took the business
out of the lawyer's hands sometimes; which was well enough,
because that was only a mud-turtle of a back-settlement
lawyer and didn't know enough to come in when it rains,
as the saying is.
They swore in the jury, and then the lawyer for the
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