| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: Very true, he said.
Whereas he who has a taste for every sort of knowledge and who is curious
to learn and is never satisfied, may be justly termed a philosopher? Am I
not right?
Glaucon said: If curiosity makes a philosopher, you will find many a
strange being will have a title to the name. All the lovers of sights have
a delight in learning, and must therefore be included. Musical amateurs,
too, are a folk strangely out of place among philosophers, for they are the
last persons in the world who would come to anything like a philosophical
discussion, if they could help, while they run about at the Dionysiac
festivals as if they had let out their ears to hear every chorus; whether
The Republic |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: the bridle galloped up the road toward Conches.
"See! there's the chateau people sending after you," said the old man.
"If you want to cross back again I'll give you a hand. I don't mind
about getting wet; it saves washing!"
"How about rheumatism?"
"Rheumatism! don't you see the sun has browned our legs, Mouche and
me, like tobacco-pipes. Here, lean on me, my good gentleman--you're
from Paris; you don't know, though you DO know so much, how to walk on
our rocks. If you stay here long enough, you'll learn a deal that's
written in the book o' nature,--you who write, so they tell me, in the
newspapers."
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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 Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard: desires? What shall I say to save myself alive from the wrath of
Dingaan?"
Then Nada thought and answered, "You shall say this, my brother. You
shall tell him that the Lily, being clothed in the war-dress of a
warrior, fell by chance in the fray. See, now, none of your people
know that you have found me; they are thinking of other things than
maids in the hour of their victory. This, then, is my plan: we will
search now by the starlight till we find the body of a fair maid, for,
doubtless, some were killed by hazard in the fight, and on her we will
set a warrior's dress, and lay by her the corpse of one of your own
men. To-morrow, at the light, you shall take the captains of your
Nada the Lily |
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 Parmenides by Plato: they will not be many.
True.
If there be no one in the others, the others are neither many nor one.
They are not.
Nor do they appear either as one or many.
Why not?
Because the others have no sort or manner or way of communion with any sort
of not-being, nor can anything which is not, be connected with any of the
others; for that which is not has no parts.
True.
Nor is there an opinion or any appearance of not-being in connexion with
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