| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: Moreover, there was a rival school at Pergamus where the fame of Crates
all but equalled the Egyptian fame of Aristarchus. Insolent! What
right had an Asiatic to know anything? So Aristarchus flew furiously on
Crates, being a man of plain common sense, who felt a correct reading a
far more important thing than any of Crates's illustrations, aesthetic,
historical, or mythological; a preference not yet quite extinct, in one,
at least, of our Universities. "Sir," said a clever Cambridge Tutor to
a philosophically inclined freshman, "remember, that our business is to
translate Plato correctly, not to discover his meaning." And,
paradoxical as it may seem, he was right. Let us first have accuracy,
the merest mechanical accuracy, in every branch of knowledge. Let us
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: for a month past only had really made an alliance with him.
Although he was not a great philosopher, after the fashion
of either Epicurus or Socrates, he was a powerful spirit,
having knowledge of life, and endowed with thought. No one
is as brave, as adventurous, or as skillful as D'Artagnan,
without being at the same time inclined to be a dreamer. He
had picked up, here and there, some scraps of M. de la
Rochefoucauld, worthy of being translated into Latin by MM.
de Port Royal, and he had made a collection, en passant, in
the society of Athos and Aramis, of many morsels of Seneca
and Cicero, translated by them, and applied to the uses of
Ten Years Later |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Cromwell by William Shakespeare: May do you good, and if you like of it.
Our Secretary at Antwerp, sir, is dead,
And the Merchants there hath sent to me,
For to provide a man fit for the place:
Now I do know none fitter than your self,
If with your liking it stand, master Cromwell.
CROMWELL.
With all my heart, sir, and I much am bound,
In love and duty for your kindness shown.
OLD CROMWELL.
Body of me, Tom, make haste, least some body
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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 Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: through alleys and byways where Selim had never been before. At
last they came to where a high wall ran along the narrow street,
with a garden behind it, and by-and-by to an iron gate. The old
man rapped upon the gate three times with his knuckles, and cried
in a loud voice, "Open to Selim, who wears the Ring of Luck!"
Then instantly the gate swung open, and Selim the Baker followed
the old man into the garden.
Bang! shut the gate behind him, and there he was.
There he was! And such a place he had never seen before. Such
fruit! Such flowers! Such fountains! Such summer-houses!
"This is nothing, " said the old man; "this is only the beginning
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