| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: that I am a haughty Aexonian.
SOCRATES: Do not answer him, Laches; I rather fancy that you are not aware
of the source from which his wisdom is derived. He has got all this from
my friend Damon, and Damon is always with Prodicus, who, of all the
Sophists, is considered to be the best puller to pieces of words of this
sort.
LACHES: Yes, Socrates; and the examination of such niceties is a much more
suitable employment for a Sophist than for a great statesman whom the city
chooses to preside over her.
SOCRATES: Yes, my sweet friend, but a great statesman is likely to have a
great intelligence. And I think that the view which is implied in Nicias'
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: How much of it, think you, could be learned at court?"
"Indeed, I cannot say," said the stranger knight:
"but I should apprehend very little."
"And so should I," said the friar: "for we should find very little of our
bold open practice, but should hear abundance of praise of our principles.
To live in seeming fellowship and secret rivalry; to have a hand for all,
and a heart for none; to be everybody's acquaintance, and nobody's friend;
to meditate the ruin of all on whom we smile, and to dread the secret
stratagems of all who smile on us; to pilfer honours and despoil
fortunes, not by fighting in daylight, but by sapping in darkness:
these are arts which the court can teach, but which we, by 'r Lady,
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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 Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln: 130 years after it was spoken. We will rerelease the
Inaugural Address of President Kennedy, officially on
November 22, 1993, on the day of the 30th anniversary
of his assassination.
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, given November 19, 1863
on the battlefield near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, USA
#STARTMARK#
Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth
upon this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war. . .testing whether
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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 Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: the open water. Indeed, I afterwards ascertained this to be
the fact, and it will be some indication of the extraordinary
strength and directness of the current of the mysterious river
that the canoe, even at this distance, was still answering to
it. Presently, too, I, or rather Umslopogaas, who woke up just
then, discovered another indication, and a very unpleasant one
it was. Perceiving some whitish object upon the water, Umslopogaas
called my attention to it, and with a few strokes of the paddle
brought the canoe to the spot, whereupon we discovered that the
object was the body of a man floating face downwards. This was
bad enough, but imagine my horror when Umslopogaas having turned
Allan Quatermain |
