| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: side of the argument only, but both, when Protagoras begins to break down.
Against the authority of the poets with whom Protagoras has ingeniously
identified himself at the commencement of the Dialogue, Socrates sets up
the proverbial philosophers and those masters of brevity the
Lacedaemonians. The poets, the Laconizers, and Protagoras are satirized at
the same time.
Not having the whole of this poem before us, it is impossible for us to
answer certainly the question of Protagoras, how the two passages of
Simonides are to be reconciled. We can only follow the indications given
by Plato himself. But it seems likely that the reconcilement offered by
Socrates is a caricature of the methods of interpretation which were
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum: by the farmer's wife, and when Dorothy asked for something to eat
the woman gave them all a good dinner, with three kinds of cake
and four kinds of cookies, and a bowl of milk for Toto.
"How far is it to the Castle of Glinda?" asked the child.
"It is not a great way," answered the farmer's wife.
"Take the road to the South and you will soon reach it.
Thanking the good woman, they started afresh and walked by the
fields and across the pretty bridges until they saw before them a
very beautiful Castle. Before the gates were three young girls,
dressed in handsome red uniforms trimmed with gold braid; and as
Dorothy approached, one of them said to her:
The Wizard of Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from King James Bible: with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom
and Raamses.
EXO 1:12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and
grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel.
EXO 1:13 And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with
rigour:
EXO 1:14 And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter,
and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their
service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour.
EXO 1:15 And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which
the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah:
King James Bible |
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 Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: melody, "in linked sweetness long drawn out," floating from the
distant hill, or along the dusky road.
Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was to pass long
winter evenings with the old Dutch wives, as they sat spinning by
the fire, with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along the
hearth, and listen to their marvellous tales of ghosts and
goblins, and haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted
bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless
horseman, or Galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they sometimes
called him. He would delight them equally by his anecdotes of
witchcraft, and of the direful omens and portentous sights and
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
