| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: have a good sense (compare omartein, sunienai, epesthai, sumpheresthai);
and much the same may be said of amathia and akolasia, for amathia may be
explained as e ama theo iontos poreia, and akolasia as e akolouthia tois
pragmasin. Thus the names which in these instances we find to have the
worst sense, will turn out to be framed on the same principle as those
which have the best. And any one I believe who would take the trouble
might find many other examples in which the giver of names indicates, not
that things are in motion or progress, but that they are at rest; which is
the opposite of motion.
CRATYLUS: Yes, Socrates, but observe; the greater number express motion.
SOCRATES: What of that, Cratylus? Are we to count them like votes? and is
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pathology of Lying, Etc. by William and Mary Healy: states and was at a hospital in one of them. In Charleston there
is a family by the name of B. (spelled the same as the name of
the people she was with in Tennessee). These were the people
Inez asked us to write to in an appeal, because they had long
known her and were wealthy, for a chance to get an education.
She stated they were immediate relatives of the B.'s in
Tennessee, and that she had visited them once at their fine home
in Charleston for three or four months. These people replied to
us that they had been receiving letters for years from
associations and organizations in regard to this girl whom they
had never seen. They were convinced she had assumed their name
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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 Vailima Letters by Robert Louis Stevenson: hundreds of bananas - another staple - and alas! I had skill
enough to know all of these for the bad kind that bears no
fruit. My Henry moralised over this the other day; how hard
it was that the bad banana flourished wild, and the good must
be weeded and tended; and I had not the heart to tell him how
fortunate they were here, and how hungry were other lands by
comparison. The ascent of this lovely lane of my dry stream
filled me with delight. I could not but be reminded of old
Mayne Reid, as I have been more than once since I came to the
tropics; and I thought, if Reid had been still living, I
would have written to tell him that, for, me, IT HAD COME
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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 Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: In the busy year that followed, anyone watching Emma McChesney
Buck as she worked and played and constructed, and helped others
to work and play and construct, would have agreed with T. A.
Buck. She did not seem a woman who was looking at life
objectively. As she went about her home in the evening, or the
office, the workroom, or the showrooms during the day, adjusting
this, arranging that, smoothing out snarls, solving problems of
business or household, she was very much alive, very vital, very
personal, very electric. In that year there came to her many
letters from Jock and Grace--happy letters, all of them, some
with an undertone of great seriousness, as is fitting when two
Emma McChesney & Co. |
