| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: Greg. No, for then we should be Colliars
Samp. I mean, if we be in choller, wee'l draw
Greg. I, While you liue, draw your necke out
o'th Collar
Samp. I strike quickly, being mou'd
Greg. But thou art not quickly mou'd to strike
Samp. A dog of the house of Mountague, moues me
Greg. To moue, is to stir: and to be valiant, is to stand:
Therefore, if thou art mou'd, thou runst away
Samp. A dogge of that house shall moue me to stand.
I will take the wall of any Man or Maid of Mountagues
Romeo and Juliet |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis: A harper hand along the ringing hills?
Flesh of his flesh, and of his soul the soul,
Hath she not fought, hath she not climbed?
And how is she a lesser thing?--
Nay, if she ever was
'Twas we that made her so, who called her queen
But kept her slave.
IV
Had she not courage for the fight?
Hath she not courage for the years to come?
Hath she not courage who descends alone--
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: a good; for when I had them they were goods only in opinion, but now the
loss of them has brought upon me intolerable and real evils. And he,
conjecturing from what then was, this that now is, bade me look to the
end of my life, and not rely and grow proud upon uncertainties." When
this was told Cyrus, who was a wiser man than Croesus, and saw in the
present example Solon's maxim confirmed, he not only freed Croesus from
punishment, but honored him as long as he lived; and Solon had the
glory, by the same saying, to save one king and instruct another.
When Solon was gone, the citizens began to quarrel; Lycurgus headed the
Plain; Megacles, the son of Alcmaeon, those to the Sea-side; and
Pisistratus the Hill-party, in which were the poorest people, the
|
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 Critias by Plato: introduction of his name. Why the Critias was never completed, whether
from accident, or from advancing age, or from a sense of the artistic
difficulty of the design, cannot be determined.
CRITIAS.
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Critias, Hermocrates, Timaeus, Socrates.
TIMAEUS: How thankful I am, Socrates, that I have arrived at last, and,
like a weary traveller after a long journey, may be at rest! And I pray
the being who always was of old, and has now been by me revealed, to grant
that my words may endure in so far as they have been spoken truly and
acceptably to him; but if unintentionally I have said anything wrong, I
pray that he will impose upon me a just retribution, and the just
|
