| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Kidnapped Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: the huge mountain that contains the Caves of the Daemons. And between
them the Valley lies smiling and peaceful.
One would thing that our good old Santa Claus, who devotes his days to
making children happy, would have no enemies on all the earth; and, as
a matter of fact, for a long period of time he encountered nothing but
love wherever he might go.
But the Daemons who live in the mountain caves grew to hate Santa Claus
very much, and all for the simple reason that he made children happy.
The Caves of the Daemons are five in number. A broad pathway leads
up to the first cave, which is a finely arched cavern at the foot of
the mountain, the entrance being beautifully carved and decorated. In
A Kidnapped Santa Claus |
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 Timaeus by Plato: in the wanderings of the planets, a necessity which protrudes through
nature. Of this too there was a shadow in the Eleatic philosophy in the
realm of opinion, which, like a mist, seemed to darken the purity of truth
in itself.--So far the words of Plato may perhaps find an intelligible
meaning. But when he goes on to speak of the Essence which is compounded
out of both, the track becomes fainter and we can only follow him with
hesitating steps. But still we find a trace reappearing of the teaching of
Anaxagoras: 'All was confusion, and then mind came and arranged things.'
We have already remarked that Plato was not acquainted with the modern
distinction of subject and object, and therefore he sometimes confuses mind
and the things of mind--(Greek) and (Greek). By (Greek) he clearly means
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