| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: afore he went. At that time women used to run for
smocks and gown-pieces at Greenhill Fair, and my wife
that is now, being a long-legged slittering maid,
hardly husband-high, went with the rest of the maidens,
for 'a was a good, runner afore she got so heavy.
When she came home I said--we were then just beginning
to walk together--'What have ye got, my honey?'
'I've won--well, I've won--a gown-piece,' says she,
her colours coming up in a moment. 'Tis a smock for a crown,
I thought; and so it turned out. Ay, when I think what
she'll say to me now without a mossel of red in her face,
Return of the Native |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber: cobalt sky, feeling my very hair grow, and health
returning in warm, electric waves. I even dared to cross
one leg over the other and to swing the pendant member
with nonchalant air, first taking a cautious survey of
the neighboring back windows to see if any one peeked.
Doubtless they did, behind those ruffled curtains, but I
grew splendidly indifferent.
Even the crawling things--and there were myriads of
them--added to the enjoyment of my ease. With my ear so
close to the ground the grass seemed fairly to buzz with
them. Everywhere there were crazily busy ants, and I,
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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 Out of Time's Abyss by Edgar Rice Burroughs: upon the roof, to all intent and purpose genuine Wieroos. Besides his
pistol Bradley carried the sword of the slain Wieroo prophet, while
the girl was armed with the small blade of the red Wieroo.
Side by side they walked slowly across the roofs toward the north
edge of the city. Wieroos flapped above them and several times
they passed others walking or sitting upon the roofs. From the
temple still rose the sounds of commotion, now pierced by
occasional shrill screams.
"The murderers are abroad," whispered the girl. "Thus will
another become the tongue of Luata. It is well for us, since it
keeps them too busy to give the time for searching for us.
Out of Time's Abyss |
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 Theaetetus by Plato: Plato, as we have already seen, did not mean to imply that such a connexion
was admitted by Protagoras himself. His metaphysical genius saw or seemed
to see a common tendency in them, just as the modern historian of ancient
philosophy might perceive a parallelism between two thinkers of which they
were probably unconscious themselves. We must remember throughout that
Plato is not speaking of Heracleitus, but of the Heracliteans, who
succeeded him; nor of the great original ideas of the master, but of the
Eristic into which they had degenerated a hundred years later. There is
nothing in the fragments of Heracleitus which at all justifies Plato's
account of him. His philosophy may be resolved into two elements--first,
change, secondly, law or measure pervading the change: these he saw
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