| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Macbeth by William Shakespeare: A Bell rings.
I goe, and it is done: the Bell inuites me.
Heare it not, Duncan, for it is a Knell,
That summons thee to Heauen, or to Hell.
Enter.
Scena Secunda.
Enter Lady.
La. That which hath made the[m] drunk, hath made me bold:
What hath quench'd them, hath giuen me fire.
Hearke, peace: it was the Owle that shriek'd,
The fatall Bell-man, which giues the stern'st good-night.
Macbeth |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: dialect (aplos = aplous, sincere); thirdly, he is the archer (aei ballon),
always shooting; or again, supposing alpha to mean ama or omou, Apollo
becomes equivalent to ama polon, which points to both his musical and his
heavenly attributes; for there is a 'moving together' alike in music and in
the harmony of the spheres. The second lambda is inserted in order to
avoid the ill-omened sound of destruction. The Muses are so called--apo
tou mosthai. The gentle Leto or Letho is named from her willingness
(ethelemon), or because she is ready to forgive and forget (lethe).
Artemis is so called from her healthy well-balanced nature, dia to artemes,
or as aretes istor; or as a lover of virginity, aroton misesasa. One of
these explanations is probably true,--perhaps all of them. Dionysus is o
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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 The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: man's own life and character. One would think the worse of the
young Englishman who did not so feel, and express his feelings
roundly and roughly. But all young Englishmen should recollect,
that to Rousseau's "Emile" they owe their deliverance from the
useless pedantries, the degrading brutalities, of the medieval
system of school education; that "Emile" awakened throughout
civilised Europe a conception of education just, humane, rational,
truly scientific, because founded upon facts; that if it had not
been written by one writhing under the bitter consequences of mis-
education, and feeling their sting and their brand day by day on his
own spirit, Miss Edgeworth might never have reformed our nurseries,
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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 Hiero by Xenophon: To these arguments Simonides replied: Yes, but the topics you have
named are to my thinking trifles; drops, as it were, in the wide
ocean. How many men, I wonder, have I seen myself, men in the deepest
sense,[1] true men, who choose to fare but ill in respect of meats and
drinks and delicacies; ay, and what is more, they voluntarily abstain
from sexual pleasures. No! it is in quite a different sphere, which I
will name at once, that you so far transcend us private citizens.[2]
It is in your vast designs, your swift achievements; it is in the
overflowing wealth of your possessions; your horses, excellent for
breed and mettle; the choice beauty of your arms; the exquisite finery
of your wives; the gorgeous palaces in which you dwell, and these,
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