| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Euthyphro by Plato: SOCRATES: Nor is every one qualified to attend to dogs, but only the
huntsman?
EUTHYPHRO: True.
SOCRATES: And I should also conceive that the art of the huntsman is the
art of attending to dogs?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
SOCRATES: As the art of the oxherd is the art of attending to oxen?
EUTHYPHRO: Very true.
SOCRATES: In like manner holiness or piety is the art of attending to the
gods?--that would be your meaning, Euthyphro?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from O Pioneers! by Willa Cather: and his boys do not understand a word of
Swedish. Annie and Lou sometimes speak
Swedish at home, but Annie is almost as much
afraid of being "caught" at it as ever her
mother was of being caught barefoot. Oscar
still has a thick accent, but Lou speaks like
anybody from Iowa.
"When I was in Hastings to attend the con-
vention," he was saying, "I saw the superin-
tendent of the asylum, and I was telling him
O Pioneers! |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine and Mucedorus by William Shakespeare: AMADINE.
My gratious father, pardon thy disloyal daughter.
KING.
What do mine eyes behold? my daughter Amadine?
Rise up, dear daughter & let these, my embracing arms,
Show some token of thy father's joy,
Which ever since thy departure hath languished in sorrow.
AMADINE.
Dear father, never were your sorrows
Greater than my griefs,
Never you so desolate as I comfortless;
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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 Paradise Lost by John Milton: Since higher I fall short, on him who next
Provokes my envy, this new favourite
Of Heaven, this man of clay, son of despite,
Whom, us the more to spite, his Maker raised
From dust: Spite then with spite is best repaid.
So saying, through each thicket dank or dry,
Like a black mist low-creeping, he held on
His midnight-search, where soonest he might find
The serpent; him fast-sleeping soon he found
In labyrinth of many a round self-rolled,
His head the midst, well stored with subtile wiles:
Paradise Lost |
