| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: going to tell you, sweet son of Cleinias and Dinomache. The explanation
is, that all these designs of yours cannot be accomplished by you without
my help; so great is the power which I believe myself to have over you and
your concerns; and this I conceive to be the reason why the God has
hitherto forbidden me to converse with you, and I have been long expecting
his permission. For, as you hope to prove your own great value to the
state, and having proved it, to attain at once to absolute power, so do I
indulge a hope that I shall be the supreme power over you, if I am able to
prove my own great value to you, and to show you that neither guardian, nor
kinsman, nor any one is able to deliver into your hands the power which you
desire, but I only, God being my helper. When you were young (compare
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: towers - fill up the fosse, - unbarricade the doors - call it
simply a confinement, and suppose 'tis some tyrant of a distemper -
and not of a man, which holds you in it, - the evil vanishes, and
you bear the other half without complaint.
I was interrupted in the heyday of this soliloquy, with a voice
which I took to be of a child, which complained "it could not get
out." - I look'd up and down the passage, and seeing neither man,
woman, nor child, I went out without farther attention.
In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words
repeated twice over; and, looking up, I saw it was a starling hung
in a little cage. - "I can't get out, - I can't get out," said the
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Economist by Xenophon: endeavour on your side to continue the discussion of economy from the
point at which you broke off, and bring it point by point to its
conclusion? What you have said so far has not been thrown away on me.
I seem to discern already more clearly, what sort of behaviour is
necessary to anything like real living.[2]
[1] Lit. "with the gods," and for the sentiment see below, x. 10;
"Cyrop." III. i. 15; "Hipparch," ix. 3.
[2] For {bioteuein} cf. Pind. "Nem." iv. 11, and see Holden ad loc.
Socrates replied: What say you then? Shall we first survey the ground
already traversed, and retrace the steps on which we were agreed, so
that, if possible we may conduct the remaining portion of the argument
|
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 The Mansion by Henry van Dyke: proper kind of
a mansion for a solid man."
Harold Weightman had often listened to his father discoursing in
this fashion on the fundamental principles of life, and always
with
a divided mind. He admired immensely his father's talents
and the single-minded energy with which he improved them.
But in the paternal philosophy there was something that
disquieted
and oppressed the young man, and made him gasp inwardly for fresh
air
|
