| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: is--GOLD. Gold represents every form of human power. I have traveled.
I found out that there were either hills or plains everywhere: the
plains are monotonous, the hills a weariness; consequently, place may
be left out of the question. As to manners; man is man all the world
over. The same battle between the poor and the rich is going on
everywhere; it is inevitable everywhere; consequently, it is better to
exploit than to be exploited. Everywhere you find the man of thews and
sinews who toils, and the lymphatic man who torments himself; and
pleasures are everywhere the same, for when all sensations are
exhausted, all that survives is Vanity--Vanity is the abiding
substance of us, the _I_ in us. Vanity is only to be satisfied by gold
Gobseck |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Soul of a Bishop by H. G. Wells: That, he thought, would be a good phrase: "Christ the Master
and Servant."....
"Members of one Body," that should be his text.... At last it
was finished. The big congregation, which had kept so still,
sighed and stirred. The task of reconciliation was as good as
done. "And now to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Ghost...."
Outside the day had become suddenly bright, the threatening
storm had drifted away, and great shafts of coloured light from
the pictured windows were smiting like arrows amidst his
hearers....
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: 'Pea soup!' exclaimed the captain. 'Blamed if I thought I
should taste pea soup again!'
Herrick sat inert and silent. It was impossible after these
months of hopeless want to smell the rough, high-spiced sea
victuals without lust, and his mouth watered with desire of the
champagne. It was no less impossible to have assisted at the
scene between Huish and the captain, and not to perceive, with
sudden bluntness, the gulf where he had fallen. He was a thief
among thieves. He said it to himself. He could not touch the
soup. If he had moved at all, it must have been to leave the
table, throw himself overboard, and drown--an honest man.
|
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 Charmides by Plato: penetrate. In the age of Cicero, and still more in that of Diogenes
Laertius and Appuleius, many other legends had gathered around the
personality of Plato,--more voyages, more journeys to visit tyrants and
Pythagorean philosophers. But if, as we agree with Karsten in supposing,
they are the forgery of some rhetorician or sophist, we cannot agree with
him in also supposing that they are of any historical value, the rather as
there is no early independent testimony by which they are supported or with
which they can be compared.
IV. There is another subject to which I must briefly call attention, lest
I should seem to have overlooked it. Dr. Henry Jackson, of Trinity
College, Cambridge, in a series of articles which he has contributed to the
|
