| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: Timaeus): these and similar terms appear to express the same truths from a
different point of view, and to belong to the same sphere with them. But
we are not justified, therefore, in attempting to identify them, any more
than in wholly opposing them. The great oppositions of the sensible and
intellectual, the unchangeable and the transient, in whatever form of words
expressed, are always maintained in Plato. But the lesser logical
distinctions, as we should call them, whether of ontology or predication,
which troubled the pre-Socratic philosophy and came to the front in
Aristotle, are variously discussed and explained. Thus far we admit
inconsistency in Plato, but no further. He lived in an age before logic
and system had wholly permeated language, and therefore we must not always
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Baby Mine by Margaret Mayo: concerned on both sides had been duly consulted, he and Aggie
were to embark upon matrimony.
"Good!" cried Alfred, when Jimmy had managed to stammer his
shame-faced confession. "We'll make it a double wedding. I can
be ready to-morrow, so far as I'm concerned." And then followed
another rhapsody upon the fitness of Zoie as the keeper of his
future home and hearth, and the mother of his future sons and
daughters. In fact, it was far into the night when the two
friends separated--separated in more than one sense, as they
afterward learned.
While Alfred and Jimmy were saying "good- night" to each other,
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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 The People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: your weapons will kill at a great distance. Would they, you
would long since have killed me. Come! I have no more time to
waste in words. I will spare the woman and take her with me to
the Kro-lu, for she is comely." And with that he advanced upon
me with raised spear.
My rifle was at my hip at the ready. He was so close that I did
not need to raise it to my shoulder, having but to pull the trigger
to send him into Kingdom Come whenever I chose; but yet I hesitated.
It was difficult to bring myself to take a human life. I could
feel no enmity toward this savage barbarian who acted almost as
wholly upon instinct as might a wild beast, and to the last moment
The People That Time Forgot |
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 Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: to death an air saturated with fog and grease and soot, vileness
for soul and body. What do you make of a case like that,
amateur psychologist? You call it an altogether serious thing
to be alive: to these men it is a drunken jest, a joke,--
horrible to angels perhaps, to them commonplace enough. My
fancy about the river was an idle one: it is no type of such a
life. What if it be stagnant and slimy here? It knows that
beyond there waits for it odorous sunlight, quaint old gardens,
dusky with soft, green foliage of apple-trees, and flushing
crimson with roses,--air, and fields, and mountains. The future
of the Welsh puddler passing just now is not so pleasant. To be
Life in the Iron-Mills |
