| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle: while once more an angry murmur ran around the crowd; for, as I
have said, the men of Denby were proud of stout William of the Scar.
Then up spoke Sir Richard gently. "Nay," said he, "the youth is right;
if the other dieth, he dieth in the wrestling ring, where he took his chance,
and was cast fairly enow."
But in the meantime three men had come forward and lifted
stout William from the ground and found that he was not dead,
though badly shaken by his heavy fall. Then the chief
judge rose and said, "Young man, the prize is duly thine.
Here is the red-gold ring, and here the gloves, and yonder
stands the pipe of wine to do with whatsoever thou dost list."
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson: And, breathing forth a pious wish,
Will cram his belly full of fish.
Poem: III
The Abbot for a walk went out,
A wealthy cleric, very stout,
And Robin has that Abbot stuck
As the red hunter spears the buck.
The djavel or the javelin
Has, you observe, gone bravely in,
And you may hear that weapon whack
Bang through the middle of his back.
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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 Arizona Nights by Stewart Edward White: I pulled on my clothes hastily, buckled in my buckskin shirt, and
dove for the fire. A dozen others were before me. It was
bitterly cold. In the east the sky had paled the least bit in
the world, but the moon and stars shone on bravely and
undiminished. A band of coyotes was shrieking desperate
blasphemies against the new day, and the stray herd, awakening,
was beginning to bawl and bellow.
Two crater-like dutch ovens, filled with pieces of fried beef,
stood near the fire; two galvanised water buckets, brimming
with soda biscuits, flanked them; two tremendous coffee pots
stood guard at either end. We picked us each a tin cup and a tin
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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 Euthydemus by Plato: significance to us; but because we have grown out of the need of them we
should not therefore despise them. They are still interesting and
instructive for the light which they shed on the history of the human mind.
There are indeed many old fallacies which linger among us, and new ones are
constantly springing up. But they are not of the kind to which ancient
logic can be usefully applied. The weapons of common sense, not the
analytics of Aristotle, are needed for their overthrow. Nor is the use of
the Aristotelian logic any longer natural to us. We no longer put
arguments into the form of syllogisms like the schoolmen; the simple use of
language has been, happily, restored to us. Neither do we discuss the
nature of the proposition, nor extract hidden truths from the copula, nor
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