| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: always expressed in words--they are really generated out of one another,
and there is a passing or process from one to the other of them?
Very true, he replied.
Well, and is there not an opposite of life, as sleep is the opposite of
waking?
True, he said.
And what is it?
Death, he answered.
And these, if they are opposites, are generated the one from the other, and
have there their two intermediate processes also?
Of course.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: was functioning ably. If he had expressed himself at all, he
might have said:
"Well, I got my work cut out for me, and I do it, and do it
right."
There was a tractor, now, of course; and a sturdy, middle-class
automobile in which Bella lolled red-faced when they drove into
town.
As Ben Westerveld had prospered, his shrewish wife had reaped her
benefits. Ben was not the selfish type of farmer who insists on
twentieth- century farm implements and medieval household
equipment. He had added a bedroom here, a cool summer kitchen
One Basket |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville: these wonderful things to his disport, and the marvellous and
delicious song of diverse birds, and the fair damsels, and the fair
wells of milk, of wine and of honey, plenteously running. And he
would let make divers instruments of music to sound in an high
tower, so merrily, that it was joy for to hear; and no man should
see the craft thereof. And those, he said, were angels of God, and
that place was Paradise, that God had behight to his friends,
saying, DABO VOBIS TERRAM FLUENTEM LACTE ET MELLE. And then would
he make them to drink of certain drink, whereof anon they should be
drunk. And then would them think greater delight than they had
before. And then would he say to them, that if they would die for
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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 The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: comparison at table some time since, which has often been quoted
and received many compliments. It was that of the mind of a bigot
to the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour on it, the more it
contracts. The simile is a very obvious, and, I suppose I may now
say, a happy one; for it has just been shown me that it occurs in a
Preface to certain Political Poems of Thomas Moore's published long
before my remark was repeated. When a person of fair character for
literary honesty uses an image, such as another has employed before
him, the presumption is, that he has struck upon it independently,
or unconsciously recalled it, supposing it his own.
It is impossible to tell, in a great many cases, whether a
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
