| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: looked with evident astonishment on the grim form of old Umslopogaas,
who raised his axe in salutation. Attracted next by the splendour
of Good's apparel, for a second their glance rested on him like
a humming moth upon a flower, then off it darted to where Sir
Henry Curtis stood, the sunlight from a window playing upon his
yellow hair and peaked beard, and marking the outlines of his
massive frame against the twilight of the somewhat gloomy hall.
He raised his eyes, and they met the fair Nyleptha's full, and
thus for the first time the goodliest man and woman that it has
ever been my lot to see looked one upon another. And why it
was I know not, but I saw the swift blood run up Nyleptha's skin
 Allan Quatermain |
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 Lesser Hippias by Plato: perhaps understand you better; has not Homer made Achilles wily?
HIPPIAS: Certainly not, Socrates; he is the most straight-forward of
mankind, and when Homer introduces them talking with one another in the
passage called the Prayers, Achilles is supposed by the poet to say to
Odysseus:--
'Son of Laertes, sprung from heaven, crafty Odysseus, I will speak out
plainly the word which I intend to carry out in act, and which will, I
believe, be accomplished. For I hate him like the gates of death who
thinks one thing and says another. But I will speak that which shall be
accomplished.'
Now, in these verses he clearly indicates the character of the two men; he
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