| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: my blasphemy. This is not love. Rather it is the love of the world. But
there is another kingdom of love, a kingdom not of this world, divine,
eternal. And this other love I will now show you in a mystery.'
Then follows the famous myth, which is a sort of parable, and like other
parables ought not to receive too minute an interpretation. In all such
allegories there is a great deal which is merely ornamental, and the
interpreter has to separate the important from the unimportant. Socrates
himself has given the right clue when, in using his own discourse
afterwards as the text for his examination of rhetoric, he characterizes it
as a 'partly true and tolerably credible mythus,' in which amid poetical
figures, order and arrangement were not forgotten.
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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 Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: She told the youngling how god Mars did try her,
And as he fell to her, so fell she to him.
'Even thus,' quoth she, 'the warlike god embraced me,'
And then she clipp'd Adonis in her arms;
'Even thus,' quoth she, 'the warlike god unlaced me,'
As if the boy should use like loving charms;
'Even thus,' quoth she, 'he seized on my lips
And with her lips on his did act the seizure
And as she fetched breath, away he skips,
And would not take her meaning nor her pleasure.
Ah, that I had my lady at this bay,
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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 Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: She had brought her children into the world; she had fed them and
clothed them and sent them to school, had Sophy, and seen them
married, and helped them to bring their children into the world
in turn. In her round, red, wholesome face shone a great wisdom,
much love, and that infinite understanding which is born only of
bitter experience. She had come to Buck's when old T. A. was
just beginning to make Featherlooms a national institution. She
had seen his struggles, his prosperity; she had grieved at his
death; she had watched young T. A. take the reins in his
unaccustomed hands, and she had gloried in Emma McChesney's rise
from office to salesroom, from salesroom to road, from road to
Emma McChesney & Co. |
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 House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: for its upper segment, such as is often seen in dwellings of a
somewhat ancient date. This same shop-door had been a subject
of No slight mortification to the present occupant of the august
Pyncheon House, as well as to some of her predecessors. The matter
is disagreeably delicate to handle; but, since the reader must
needs be let into the secret, he will please to understand, that,
about a century ago, the head of the Pyncheons found himself
involved in serious financial difficulties. The fellow (gentleman,
as he styled himself) can hardly have been other than a spurious
interloper; for, instead of seeking office from the king or the
royal governor, or urging his hereditary claim to Eastern lands,
House of Seven Gables |
