| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: greatest happiness of the whole; we thought that in a State which is
ordered with a view to the good of the whole we should be most likely to
find justice, and in the ill-ordered State injustice: and, having found
them, we might then decide which of the two is the happier. At present, I
take it, we are fashioning the happy State, not piecemeal, or with a view
of making a few happy citizens, but as a whole; and by-and-by we will
proceed to view the opposite kind of State. Suppose that we were painting
a statue, and some one came up to us and said, Why do you not put the most
beautiful colours on the most beautiful parts of the body--the eyes ought
to be purple, but you have made them black--to him we might fairly answer,
Sir, you would not surely have us beautify the eyes to such a degree that
The Republic |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Poems of William Blake by William Blake: Ah weep not little voice, thou can'st not speak, but thou can'st weep:
Is this a Worm? I see they lay helpless & naked: weeping
And none to answer, none to cherish thee with mothers smiles.
The Clod of Clay heard the Worms voice & rais'd her pitying head:
She bowd over the weeping infant, and her life exhald
In milky fondness, then on Thel she fix'd her humble eyes
O beauty of the vales of Har, we live not for ourselves,
Thou seest me the meanest thing, and so I am indeed:
My bosom of itself is cold, and of itself is dark,
But he that loves the lowly, pours his oil upon my head
And kisses me, and binds his nuptial bands around my breast.
Poems of William Blake |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The White Moll by Frank L. Packard: She had certainly lost her senses, though! Even if that word, that
look, that act had passed between them, between the Adventurer and
the White Moll, he still did not know that Gypsy Nan was the White
Moll - and that was the one thing now that he must not know, and...
Rhoda Gray halted suddenly, and stared along the hallway ahead of
her, and up the short, ladder-like steps that led to the garret.
Her ears - or was it fancy? - had caught what sounded like a low
knocking up there upon her door. Yes, it came again now distinctly.
It was dusk outside; in here, in the hall, it was almost dark. Her
eyes strained through the murk. She was not mistaken. Something
darker than the surrounding darkness, a form, moved up there.
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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 Pupil by Henry James: reason, which was very honourable to Morgan and which dwelt simply
in his making one so forget that he was no more than a patched
urchin. If one dealt with him on a different basis one's
misadventures were one's own fault. So Pemberton waited in a queer
confusion of yearning and alarm for the catastrophe which was held
to hang over the house of Moreen, of which he certainly at moments
felt the symptoms brush his cheek and as to which he wondered much
in what form it would find its liveliest effect.
Perhaps it would take the form of sudden dispersal - a frightened
sauve qui peut, a scuttling into selfish corners. Certainly they
were less elastic than of yore; they were evidently looking for
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