| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: Save when the neat-herd's lad, his empty pail
Well slung upon his back, with leap and bound
Raced on the other side, and stopped to hail,
Hoping that he some comrade new had found,
And gat no answer, and then half afraid
Passed on his simple way, or down the still and silent glade
A little girl ran laughing from the farm,
Not thinking of love's secret mysteries,
And when she saw the white and gleaming arm
And all his manlihood, with longing eyes
Whose passion mocked her sweet virginity
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Kenilworth by Walter Scott: have you forgotten that the noble Earl has given such strict
charges to keep your marriage secret, that he may preserve his
court-favour? and can you think that your sudden appearance at
his castle, at such a juncture, and in such a presence, will be
acceptable to him?"
"Thou thinkest I would disgrace him," said the Countess; "nay,
let go my arm, I can walk without aid and work without counsel."
"Be not angry with me, lady," said Janet meekly, "and let me
still support you; the road is rough, and you are little
accustomed to walk in darkness."
"If you deem me not so mean as may disgrace my husband," said the
Kenilworth |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: out not to be the right ones, and now they are looking for a
fresh lot," said Sobol, laughing. "It's too bad!"
"I did not ask him to worry himself," said I, almost crying with
excitement. "What's it all for? What's it all for? Well,
supposing I was wrong, supposing I have done wrong, why do they
try to put me more in the wrong?"
"Come, come, come, come!" said Sobol, trying to soothe me. "Come!
I have had a drop, that is why I said it. My tongue is my enemy.
Come," he sighed, "we have eaten and drunk wine, and now for a
nap."
He got up from the table, kissed Ivan Ivanitch on the head, and
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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 Euthydemus by Plato: cannot be either used or explained away. The same absoluteness which was
once attributed to abstractions is now attached to the words which are the
signs of them. The philosophy which in the first and second generation was
a great and inspiring effort of reflection, in the third becomes
sophistical, verbal, eristic.
It is this stage of philosophy which Plato satirises in the Euthydemus.
The fallacies which are noted by him appear trifling to us now, but they
were not trifling in the age before logic, in the decline of the earlier
Greek philosophies, at a time when language was first beginning to perplex
human thought. Besides he is caricaturing them; they probably received
more subtle forms at the hands of those who seriously maintained them.
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