| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: arrived at. Socrates maintains his character of a 'know nothing;' but the
boys have already learned the lesson which he is unable to teach them, and
they are free from the conceit of knowledge. (Compare Chrm.) The dialogue
is what would be called in the language of Thrasyllus tentative or
inquisitive. The subject is continued in the Phaedrus and Symposium, and
treated, with a manifest reference to the Lysis, in the eighth and ninth
books of the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. As in other writings of
Plato (for example, the Republic), there is a progress from unconscious
morality, illustrated by the friendship of the two youths, and also by the
sayings of the poets ('who are our fathers in wisdom,' and yet only tell us
half the truth, and in this particular instance are not much improved upon
Lysis |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The War in the Air by H. G. Wells: a child will shatter its cities of brick and card. Below, they
left ruins and blazing conflagrations and heaped and scattered
dead; men, women, and children mixed together as though they had
been no more than Moors, or Zulus, or Chinese. Lower New York
was soon a furnace of crimson flames, from which there was no
escape. Cars, railways, ferries, all had ceased, and never a
light lit the way of the distracted fugitives in that dusky
confusion but the light of burning. He had glimpses of what,it
must mean to be down there--glimpses. And it came to him
suddenly as an incredible discovery, that such disasters were not
only possible now in this strange, gigantic, foreign New York,
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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 Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: about 1858 by the Argyll Campbells, appears to have been the
original 'Son of my love'; and his more loyal clansmen took
the name to fight under. It may be supposed the story of
their resistance became popular, and the name in some sort
identified with the idea of opposition to the Campbells.
Twice afterwards, on some renewed aggression, in 1502 and
1552, we find the Macgregors again banding themselves into a
sept of 'Sons of my love'; and when the great disaster fell on
them in 1603, the whole original legend reappears, and we have
the heir of Alaster of Glenstrae born 'among the willows' of a
fugitive mother, and the more loyal clansmen again rallying
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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 Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: upraised the contumelious whip against the very dame who had been
so cruelly misusing him, my little great-heart gave but one hoarse
cry and fell upon the tyrant tooth and nail. This is the tale of a
soul's tragedy. After three years of unavailing chivalry, he
suddenly, in one hour, threw off the yoke of obligation; had he
been Shakespeare he would then have written TROILUS AND CRESSIDA to
brand the offending sex; but being only a little dog, he began to
bite them. The surprise of the ladies whom he attacked indicated
the monstrosity of his offence; but he had fairly beaten off his
better angel, fairly committed moral suicide; for almost in the
same hour, throwing aside the last rags of decency, he proceeded to
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