| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll: attention from himself--but it was no use--the Anglo-Saxon
attitudes only got more extraordinary every moment, while the
great eyes rolled wildly from side to side.
`You alarm me!' said the King. `I feel faint--Give me a ham
sandwich!'
On which the Messenger, to Alice's great amusement, opened a
bag that hung round his neck, and handed a sandwich to the King,
who devoured it greedily.
`Another sandwich!' said the King.
`There's nothing but hay left now,' the Messenger said, peeping
into the bag.
Through the Looking-Glass |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from King James Bible: from the wilderness of Sin, after their journeys, according to the
commandment of the LORD, and pitched in Rephidim: and there was no water
for the people to drink.
EXO 17:2 Wherefore the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us
water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them, Why chide ye with me?
wherefore do ye tempt the LORD?
EXO 17:3 And the people thirsted there for water; and the people
murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that thou hast
brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle
with thirst?
EXO 17:4 And Moses cried unto the LORD, saying, What shall I do unto
King James Bible |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: coast were reefs, around which the water foamed and sparkled, giving
them the appearance of great white roses, floating on the liquid
surface or resting on the shore. Seeing this barren tract with the
ocean on one side, and on the other the arm of the sea which runs up
between Croisic and the rocky shore of Guerande, at the base of which
lay the salt marshes, denuded of vegetation, I looked at Pauline and
asked her if she felt the courage to face the burning sun and the
strength to walk through sand.
"I have boots," she said. "Let us go," and she pointed to the tower of
Batz, which arrested the eye by its immense pile placed there like a
pyramid; but a slender, delicately outlined pyramid, a pyramid so
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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 Symposium by Plato: highest and purest abstraction. This abstraction is the far-off heaven on
which the eye of the mind is fixed in fond amazement. The unity of truth,
the consistency of the warring elements of the world, the enthusiasm for
knowledge when first beaming upon mankind, the relativity of ideas to the
human mind, and of the human mind to ideas, the faith in the invisible, the
adoration of the eternal nature, are all included, consciously or
unconsciously, in Plato's doctrine of love.
The successive speeches in praise of love are characteristic of the
speakers, and contribute in various degrees to the final result; they are
all designed to prepare the way for Socrates, who gathers up the threads
anew, and skims the highest points of each of them. But they are not to be
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