| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: The piece was at an end; shadow and silence possessed the valley of
the Oise. We took to the paddle with glad hearts, like people who
have sat out a noble performance and returned to work. The river
was more dangerous here; it ran swifter, the eddies were more
sudden and violent. All the way down we had had our fill of
difficulties. Sometimes it was a weir which could be shot,
sometimes one so shallow and full of stakes that we must withdraw
the boats from the water and carry them round. But the chief sort
of obstacle was a consequence of the late high winds. Every two or
three hundred yards a tree had fallen across the river, and usually
involved more than another in its fall.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: stir thereto, hither let him come and try the issue with
me, in boxing or in wrestling or even in the foot race, I
care not which, for ye have greatly angered me: let any of
all the Phaeacians come save Laodamas alone, for he is mine
host: who would strive with one that entreated him kindly?
Witless and worthless is the man, whoso challengeth his
host that receiveth him in a strange land, he doth but maim
his own estate. But for the rest, I refuse none and hold
none lightly, but I fain would know and prove them face to
face. For I am no weakling in all sports, even in the feats
of men. I know well how to handle the polished bow, and
The Odyssey |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: him. All anguish that shakes human souls was gathered there;
supplications the most tender, the wrath of kings, the love in a
girl's heart pleading with the headsman; then, and after all
these, the deeply searching glance a man turns on his fellows as
he mounts the last step of the scaffold. Life so dilated in this
fragment of life that Don Juan shrank back; he walked up and down
the room, he dared not meet that gaze, but he saw nothing else.
The ceiling and the hangings, the whole room was sown with living
points of fire and intelligence. Everywhere those gleaming eyes
haunted him.
"He might very likely have lived another hundred years!" he cried
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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 Charmides by Plato: nor should we have allowed those who were under us to do anything which
they were not likely to do well; and they would be likely to do well just
that of which they had knowledge; and the house or state which was ordered
or administered under the guidance of wisdom, and everything else of which
wisdom was the lord, would have been well ordered; for truth guiding, and
error having been eliminated, in all their doings, men would have done
well, and would have been happy. Was not this, Critias, what we spoke of
as the great advantage of wisdom--to know what is known and what is unknown
to us?
Very true, he said.
And now you perceive, I said, that no such science is to be found anywhere.
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