| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: places, relations of all kinds, are expressed by modifications of them.
The earliest parts of speech, as we may call them by anticipation, like the
first utterances of children, probably partook of the nature of
interjections and nouns; then came verbs; at length the whole sentence
appeared, and rhythm and metre followed. Each stage in the progress of
language was accompanied by some corresponding stage in the mind and
civilisation of man. In time, when the family became a nation, the wild
growth of dialects passed into a language. Then arose poetry and
literature. We can hardly realize to ourselves how much with each
improvement of language the powers of the human mind were enlarged; how the
inner world took the place of outer; how the pictorial or symbolical or
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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 Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling: door, the torch over her head, watching us climb the
cliff-path from the boat. "Aie! Aie!" she said. "Children
you went away. Men and a woman you return!" Then
she kissed Mother, and Mother wept. Thus our visit to
the Waters settled our fates for each of us, maiden.'
He rose to his feet and listened, leaning on the shield-rim.
'I think that's Dan - my brother,' said Una.
'Yes; and the Faun is with him,'he replied, as Dan with
Puck stumbled through the copse.
'We should have come sooner,' Puck called, 'but
the beauties of your native tongue, O Parnesius, have
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