| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: the whole narrative is a fabrication, interpreters have looked for the spot
in every part of the globe, America, Arabia Felix, Ceylon, Palestine,
Sardinia, Sweden.
Timaeus concludes with a prayer that his words may be acceptable to the God
whom he has revealed, and Critias, whose turn follows, begs that a larger
measure of indulgence may be conceded to him, because he has to speak of
men whom we know and not of gods whom we do not know. Socrates readily
grants his request, and anticipating that Hermocrates will make a similar
petition, extends by anticipation a like indulgence to him.
Critias returns to his story, professing only to repeat what Solon was told
by the priests. The war of which he was about to speak had occurred 9000
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: all impressions, and is stirred and informed by them, and appears different
from time to time by reason of them. But the forms which enter into and go
out of her are the likenesses of real existences modelled after their
patterns in a wonderful and inexplicable manner, which we will hereafter
investigate. For the present we have only to conceive of three natures:
first, that which is in process of generation; secondly, that in which the
generation takes place; and thirdly, that of which the thing generated is a
resemblance. And we may liken the receiving principle to a mother, and the
source or spring to a father, and the intermediate nature to a child; and
may remark further, that if the model is to take every variety of form,
then the matter in which the model is fashioned will not be duly prepared,
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence: probably I'm just a special case: one of the men who like women, but
don't love women, and even hate them if they force me into a pretence
of love, or an entangled appearance.
'But doesn't it make you sad?'
'Why should it? Not a bit! I look at Charlie May, and the rest of the
men who have affairs...No, I don't envy them a bit! If fate sent me a
woman I wanted, well and good. Since I don't know any woman I want, and
never see one...why, I presume I'm cold, and really LIKE some women
very much.'
'Do you like me?'
'Very much! And you see there's no question of kissing between us, is
Lady Chatterley's Lover |
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 Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: Fell upon lasting silence. Continents
And continental oceans intervene;
A sea uncharted, on a lampless isle,
Environs and confines their wandering child
In vain. The voice of generations dead
Summons me, sitting distant, to arise,
My numerous footsteps nimbly to retrace,
And, all mutation over, stretch me down
In that denoted city of the dead.
Apemama.
XXXVI - TO S. C.
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