| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: buildings in the moonlight, and perhaps he would be one of the
footfalls.
During the five or ten minutes he waited in the shadow of the
fence, there was somehow this fire ... that was as near as he
could name it afterward. He remembered calling aloud:
"I want some one stupid. Oh, send some one stupid!" This to the
black fence opposite him, in whose shadows the footsteps shuffled
... shuffled. He supposed "stupid" and "good" had become somehow
intermingled through previous association. When he called thus it
was not an act of will at allwill had turned him away from the
moving figure in the street; it was almost instinct that called,
This Side of Paradise |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: minded toward the gods, I will first deliver time to sundry
tortures, and then put thee to the cruellest death, dealing with
thee not as with a son, but as with an enemy and rebel."
XXV.
In such wise did the father threaten and wrathfully retire. But
the son entered his own bedchamber, and lifted up his eyes to the
proper judge of his cause, and cried out of the depth of his
heart, "O Lord my God, my sweet hope and unerring promise, the
sure refuge of them that are wholly given up to thee, with
gracious and kindly eye look upon the contrition of my heart, and
leave me not, neither forsake me. But, according to thine
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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 Philebus by Plato: the historical germ from the later growth of reflection. And he may also
truly add that for two thousand years and more, utility, if not the
originating, has been the great corrective principle in law, in politics,
in religion, leading men to ask how evil may be diminished and good
increased--by what course of policy the public interest may be promoted,
and to understand that God wills the happiness, not of some of his
creatures and in this world only, but of all of them and in every stage of
their existence.
'What is the place of happiness or utility in a system of moral
philosophy?' is analogous to the question asked in the Philebus, 'What rank
does pleasure hold in the scale of goods?' Admitting the greatest
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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 Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: And to content, and to encourage thee,
Know this, which as I in a cloud foresee:
XXII
"I guess, before the over-gliding sun
Shall many years mete out by weeks and days,
A prince that shall in fertile Egypt won,
Shall fill all Asia with his prosperous frays,
I speak not of his acts in quiet done,
His policy, his rule, his wisdom's praise,
Let this suffice, by him these Christians shall
In fight subdued fly, and conquered fall.
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