| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: they are a mere logical puzzle, while others have seen in them an Hegelian
propaedeutic of the doctrine of Ideas. The first of these views derives
support from the manner in which Parmenides speaks of a similar method
being applied to all Ideas. Yet it is hard to suppose that Plato would
have furnished so elaborate an example, not of his own but of the Eleatic
dialectic, had he intended only to give an illustration of method. The
second view has been often overstated by those who, like Hegel himself,
have tended to confuse ancient with modern philosophy. We need not deny
that Plato, trained in the school of Cratylus and Heracleitus, may have
seen that a contradiction in terms is sometimes the best expression of a
truth higher than either (compare Soph.). But his ideal theory is not
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: those conducting the service. He tried to hear nothing but the
prayers that were being chanted or read, to feel nothing but
self-oblivion in consciousness of the fulfilment of duty--a
feeling he always experienced when hearing or reciting in advance
the prayers he had so often heard.
So he stood, crossing and prostrating himself when necessary, and
struggled with himself, now giving way to cold condemnation and
now to a consciously evoked obliteration of thought and feeling.
Then the sacristan, Father Nicodemus--also a great
stumbling-block to Sergius who involuntarily reproached him for
flattering and fawning on the Abbot--approached him and, bowing
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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 Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: tortures in which the devil, their father, has so perfectly
instructed the Indians.
"So Don Sebastian, being stripped of his garments, and painted
after the Indian fashion, was set to all mean and toilsome work,
amid the buffetings and insults of the whole village. And this,
ladies, he endured without a murmur, ay, took delight in enduring
it, as he would have endured things worse a thousand times, only
for the sake, like a true lover as he was, of being near the
goddess whom he worshipped, and of seeing her now and then afar
off, happy enough to be repaid even by that for all indignities.
"And yet, you who have loved may well guess, as I can, that ere a
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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 Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell: feet when bayonet met bayonet and flattened where bodies threshed
in agonies. . . . And the lazy streams were redder now than ever
Georgia clay could make them. Peachtree Creek was crimson, so they
said, after the Yankees crossed it. Peachtree Creek, Decatur, Ezra
Church, Utoy Creek. Never names of places any more. Names of
graves where friends lay buried, names of tangled underbrush and
thick woods where bodies rotted unburied, names of the four sides
of Atlanta where Sherman had tried to force his army in and Hood's
men had doggedly beaten him back.
At last, news came from the south to the strained town and it was
alarming news, especially to Scarlett. General Sherman was trying
Gone With the Wind |
