| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: On the day of my departure I was up a little after five; by six, we
began to load the donkey; and ten minutes after, my hopes were in
the dust. The pad would not stay on Modestine's back for half a
moment. I returned it to its maker, with whom I had so
contumelious a passage that the street outside was crowded from
wall to wall with gossips looking on and listening. The pad
changed hands with much vivacity; perhaps it would be more
descriptive to say that we threw it at each other's heads; and, at
any rate, we were very warm and unfriendly, and spoke with a deal
of freedom.
I had a common donkey pack-saddle - a BARDE, as they call it -
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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 Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: the union, which had been the nucleus of his practice here.
At the end of a fortnight he came in-doors one evening to Grace
more briskly than usual. "They have written to me again about
that practice in Budmouth that I once negotiated for," he said to
her. "The premium asked is eight hundred pounds, and I think that
between your father and myself it ought to be raised. Then we can
get away from this place forever."
The question had been mooted between them before, and she was not
unprepared to consider it. They had not proceeded far with the
discussion when a knock came to the door, and in a minute Grammer
ran up to say that a message had arrived from Hintock House
The Woodlanders |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: Haley whipped up the horse, and, with a steady, mournful
look, fixed to the last on the old place, Tom was whirled away.
Mr. Shelby at this time was not at home. He had sold Tom
under the spur of a driving necessity, to get out of the power of
a man whom he dreaded,--and his first feeling, after the consummation
of the bargain, had been that of relief. But his wife's expostulations
awoke his half-slumbering regrets; and Tom's manly disinterestedness
increased the unpleasantness of his feelings. It was in vain that
he said to himself that he had a _right_ to do it,--that everybody
did it,--and that some did it without even the excuse of necessity;--he
could not satisfy his own feelings; and that he might not witness
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
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 Euthydemus by Plato: Crito is anxious about the education of his children, one of whom is
growing up. The description of Dionysodorus and Euthydemus suggests to him
the reflection that the professors of education are strange beings.
Socrates consoles him with the remark that the good in all professions are
few, and recommends that 'he and his house' should continue to serve
philosophy, and not mind about its professors.
...
There is a stage in the history of philosophy in which the old is dying
out, and the new has not yet come into full life. Great philosophies like
the Eleatic or Heraclitean, which have enlarged the boundaries of the human
mind, begin to pass away in words. They subsist only as forms which have
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