| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini: he followed the servant across the lawn and vanished through the ivied
porch.
As he went Diana flew to her cousin. Her shallow nature was touched
with transient pity. "My poor Ruth..." she murmured soothingly, and
set her arm about the other's waist. There was a gleam of tears in
the eyes Ruth turned upon her. Together they came to the granite seat
and sank to it side by side, fronting the placid river. There Ruth,
her elbows on her knees, cradled her chin in her hands, and with a sigh
of misery stared straight before her.
"It was untrue!" she said at last. "What Richard said of me was untrue."
"Why, yes," Diana snapped, contemptuous. "The only truth is that Richard
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: Apostle, raised to its highest power, when he declared that the
immutable and self-existent Being, for whom the Greek sages sought, and
did not altogether seek in vain, has gathered together all things both
in heaven and in earth in one inspiring and creating Logos, who is both
God and Man?
Be this as it may, we find that from the time of Philo, the deepest
thought of the heathen world began to flow in a theologic channel. All
the great heathen thinkers henceforth are theologians. In the times of
Nero, for instance, Epictetus the slave, the regenerator of Stoicism, is
no mere speculator concerning entities and quiddities, correct or
incorrect. He is a slave searching for the secret of freedom, and
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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 Phaedrus by Plato: or the pretence of Socrates in the Cratylus that his knowledge of philology
is derived from Euthyphro, the invention is really due to the imagination
of Plato, and may be compared to the parodies of the Sophists in the
Protagoras. Numerous fictions of this sort occur in the Dialogues, and the
gravity of Plato has sometimes imposed upon his commentators. The
introduction of a considerable writing of another would seem not to be in
keeping with a great work of art, and has no parallel elsewhere.
In the second speech Socrates is exhibited as beating the rhetoricians at
their own weapons; he 'an unpractised man and they masters of the art.'
True to his character, he must, however, profess that the speech which he
makes is not his own, for he knows nothing of himself. (Compare Symp.)
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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 The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare: And yet the duteous vassal scarce is gone.
The weary time she cannot entertain,
For now 'tis stale to sigh, to weep, to groan:
So woe hath wearied woe, moan tired moan,
That she her plaints a little while doth stay,
Pausing for means to mourn some newer way.
At last she calls to mind where hangs a piece
Of skilful painting, made for Priam's Troy;
Before the which is drawn the power of Greece,
For Helen's rape the city to destroy,
Threat'ning cloud-kissing Ilion with annoy;
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