| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: notable feature of Athenian life. The wife having no position in
society, being nothing, indeed, but a sort of household utensil,
how greatly was life simplified! What a door for expenditure was
there, as yet securely closed, and which no one had thought of
opening! No milliner's or dressmaker's bills, no evening parties,
no Protean fashions, no elegant furniture, no imperious necessity
for Kleanthes to outshine Kleon, no coaches, no Chateau Margaux,
no journeys to Arkadia in the summer! In such a state of society,
as one may easily see, the labour of one man would support half a
dozen. It cost the Athenian but a few cents daily to live, and
even these few cents might be earned by his slaves. We need not,
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Spirit of the Border by Zane Grey: does not forget the wronged Indian.
The frontier in 1777 produced white men so savage as to be men in name only.
These outcasts and renegades lived among the savages, and during thirty years
harassed the border, perpetrating all manner of fiendish cruelties upon. the
settlers. They were no less cruel to the redmen whom they ruled, and at the
height of their bloody careers made futile the Moravian missionaries' long
labors, and destroyed the beautiful hamlet of the Christian Indians, called
Gnaddenhutten, or Village of Peace.
And while the border produced such outlaws so did it produce hunters Eke
Boone, the Zanes, the McCollochs, and Wetzel, that strange, silent man whose
deeds are still whispered in the country where he once roamed in his insatiate
The Spirit of the Border |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Phoenix and the Turtle by William Shakespeare: Augur of the fever's end,
To this troop come thou not near.
From this session interdict
Every fowl of tyrant wing,
Save the eagle, feather'd king:
Keep the obsequy so strict.
Let the priest in surplice white,
That defunctive music can,
Be the death-defying swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right.
And thou, treble-dated crow,
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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 Sophist by Plato: one?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And when I spoke of not-being as indescribable and unspeakable
and unutterable, in using each of these words in the singular, did I not
refer to not-being as one?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And yet we say that, strictly speaking, it should not be defined
as one or many, and should not even be called 'it,' for the use of the word
'it' would imply a form of unity.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: How, then, can any one put any faith in me? For now, as always,
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