| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: having lived so long. He had an accession of filial piety, like a
thief's return in thought to honesty at the prospect of a million
adroitly stolen.
Before long Don Juan had crossed the lofty, chilly suite of rooms
in which his father lived; the penetrating influences of the damp
close air, the mustiness diffused by old tapestries and presses
thickly covered with dust had passed into him, and now he stood
in the old man's antiquated room, in the repulsive presence of
the deathbed, beside a dying fire. A flickering lamp on a Gothic
table sent broad uncertain shafts of light, fainter or brighter,
across the bed, so that the dying man's face seemed to wear a
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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 Republic by Plato: failed to distinguish the contingent from the relative. In the Theaetetus
the first of these difficulties begins to clear up; in the Sophist the
second; and for this, as well as for other reasons, both these dialogues
are probably to be regarded as later than the Republic.
BOOK VI. Having determined that the many have no knowledge of true being,
and have no clear patterns in their minds of justice, beauty, truth, and
that philosophers have such patterns, we have now to ask whether they or
the many shall be rulers in our State. But who can doubt that philosophers
should be chosen, if they have the other qualities which are required in a
ruler? For they are lovers of the knowledge of the eternal and of all
truth; they are haters of falsehood; their meaner desires are absorbed in
The Republic |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: take Missa Whela by he shoul'a' (shoulder), he take him light out
house; he give chief he whale-boat, he file-a'm, he blackee coat.
He take Missa Whela he house, make him sit down with he wife and
chil'en. Missa Whela all-the-same pelison (prison); he wife, he
chil'en in Amelica; he cly - O, he cly. Kekela he solly. One day
Kekela he see ship. (PANTOMIME.) He say Missa Whela, "Ma' Whala?"
Missa Whela he say, "Yes." Kanaka they begin go down beach.
Kekela he get eleven Kanaka, get oa' (oars), get evely thing. He
say Missa Whela, "Now you go quick." They jump in whale-boat.
"Now you low!" Kekela he say: "you low quick, quick!" (VIOLENT
PANTOMIME, AND A CHANGE INDICATING THAT THE NARRATOR HAS LEFT THE
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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 Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: face its homely, cheery smile. It made her eyes quick to know
the message in the depths of colour in the evening sky, or even
the flickering tints of the green creeper on the wall with its
crimson cornucopias filled with hot shining. She liked clear,
vital colours, this girl,--the crimsons and blues. They answered
her, somehow. They could speak. There were things in the world
that like herself were marred,--did not understand,--were hungry
to know: the gray sky, the mud streets, the tawny lichens. She
cried sometimes, looking at them, hardly knowing why: she could
not help it, with a vague sense of loss. It seemed at those
times so dreary for them to be alive,--or for her. Other things
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
