| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a
crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider
whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if
it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent
of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let
your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I
have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself
to the wrong which I condemn.
As for adopting the ways of the State has provided for
remedying the evil, I know not of such ways. They take too
much time, and a man's life will be gone. I have other
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: yet it was not a simple, but rather a very complex passion.
What there was in it of the purely sensuous instinct of boyhood
had been transformed by the workings of the imagination,
changed into something that seemed to the lad himself to be remote
from sense, and was for that very reason all the more dangerous.
It was the passions about whose origin we deceived ourselves
that tyrannized most strongly over us. Our weakest motives
were those of whose nature we were conscious. It often happened
that when we thought we were experimenting on others we were
really experimenting on ourselves.
While Lord Henry sat dreaming on these things, a knock came to the door,
The Picture of Dorian Gray |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: but . . ."
Truly it is not a ruinous service, Socrates (he answered)--far from
it. I give them thanks, which is not costly. I make return to them of
all they give to me from time to time. I speak well of them, with all
the strength I have. And whenever I take their sacred names to
witness, I do not wittingly falsify my word.
Then God be praised (said Socrates), if being what you are, you have
such friends; the gods themselves, it would appear, delight in
nobleness of soul.[77]
[77] {kalokagathia}, "beautiful and gentle manhood."
Thus, in solemn sort, the theme was handled, thus gravely ended.
The Symposium |
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 On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God.
A very few--as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the
great sense, and men--serve the state with their consciences
also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and
they are commonly treated as enemies by it. A wise man will
only be useful as a man, and will not submit to be "clay,"
and "stop a hole to keep the wind away," but leave that
office to his dust at least:
"I am too high born to be propertied,
To be a second at control,
Or useful serving-man and instrument
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
