| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: long creeping plants grew in the crevices. And there were large calm lakes
there too, in which white swans were swimming, and beat the air with their
wings. The King's Son often stood still and listened. He thought the bell
sounded from the depths of these still lakes; but then he remarked again that
the tone proceeded not from there, but farther off, from out the depths of the
forest.
The sun now set: the atmosphere glowed like fire. It was still in the woods,
so very still; and he fell on his knees, sung his evening hymn, and said: "I
cannot find what I seek; the sun is going down, and night is coming--the dark,
dark night. Yet perhaps I may be able once more to see the round red sun
before he entirely disappears. I will climb up yonder rock."
Fairy Tales |
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 Hiero by Xenophon: any of them would be little less than suicidal.[18]
[18] Or, "and to curtail these would seem to be self-slaughter."
Or, to put it differently, why should any one expend compassion on a
man, as if he were a beggar, who has it in his power to satisfy by
just and honest means his every need?[19] Surely it would be more
appropriate to call that man a wretched starveling beggar rather, who
through lack of means is driven to live by ugly shifts and base
contrivances.
[19] i.e. "to expend compassion on a man who, etc., were surely a
pathetic fallacy." Al. "Is not the man who has it in his power,
etc., far above being pitied?"
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