| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: But surely, my man, when the voyage began,
You might have suggested it then?
"It's excessively awkward to mention it now--
As I think I've already remarked."
And the man they called "Hi!" replied, with a sigh,
"I informed you the day we embarked.
"You may charge me with murder--or want of sense--
(We are all of us weak at times):
But the slightest approach to a false pretense
Was never among my crimes!
"I said it in Hebrew--I said it in Dutch--
The Hunting of the Snark |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: connected as the Phaedrus and Symposium, there is great improbability in
supposing that one of them was written at least twenty years after the
other. The conclusion seems to be, that the Dialogue was written at some
comparatively late but unknown period of Plato's life, after he had
deserted the purely Socratic point of view, but before he had entered on
the more abstract speculations of the Sophist or the Philebus. Taking into
account the divisions of the soul, the doctrine of transmigration, the
contemplative nature of the philosophic life, and the character of the
style, we shall not be far wrong in placing the Phaedrus in the
neighbourhood of the Republic; remarking only that allowance must be made
for the poetical element in the Phaedrus, which, while falling short of the
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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 An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: romance with the Princess Goritza. Has any one ever reflected on the
service a dead sentiment can do to society; how love may become both
social and useful? This will serve to explain why, in spite of his
constant winning at play (he never left a salon without carrying off
with him about six francs), the old chevalier remained the spoilt
darling of the town. His losses--which, by the bye, he always
proclaimed, were very rare.
All who know him declare that they have never met, not even in the
Egyptian museum at Turin, so agreeable a mummy. In no country in the
world did parasitism ever take on so pleasant a form. Never did
selfishness of a most concentrated kind appear less forth-putting,
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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 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: said he, 'if you were once out of the ship, you must look to
yourself afterwards; that I can say nothing to.' So we dropped
the discourse for that time.
In the meantime, my governess, faithful to the last moment,
conveyed my letter to the prison to my husband, and got an
answer to it, and the next day came down herself to the ship,
bringing me, in the first place, a sea-bed as they call it, and
all its furniture, such as was convenient, but not to let the
people think it was extraordinary. She brought with her a
sea-chest--that is, a chest, such as are made for seamen, with
all the conveniences in it, and filled with everything almost
Moll Flanders |
