| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: described generally as the love of the everlasting possession of the good?'
'That is most true.'
'Then if this be the nature of love, can you tell me further,' she said,
'what is the manner of the pursuit? what are they doing who show all this
eagerness and heat which is called love? and what is the object which they
have in view? Answer me.' 'Nay, Diotima,' I replied, 'if I had known, I
should not have wondered at your wisdom, neither should I have come to
learn from you about this very matter.' 'Well,' she said, 'I will teach
you:--The object which they have in view is birth in beauty, whether of
body or soul.' 'I do not understand you,' I said; 'the oracle requires an
explanation.' 'I will make my meaning clearer,' she replied. 'I mean to
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson: You dash in chase of Sals and Bridgets,
You drink and risk delirium tremens,
Your whole estate a common seaman's!
Regard your friend and school companion,
Soon to be wed to Miss Trevanion
(Smooth, honourable, fat and flowery,
With Heaven knows how much land in dowry),
Look at me - Am I in good case?
Look at my hands, look at my face;
Look at the cloth of my apparel;
Try me and test me, lock and barrel;
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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 Hamlet by William Shakespeare: And Conuoy is assistant; doe not sleepe,
But let me heare from you
Ophel. Doe you doubt that?
Laer. For Hamlet, and the trifling of his fauours,
Hold it a fashion and a toy in Bloude;
A Violet in the youth of Primy Nature;
Froward, not permanent; sweet not lasting
The suppliance of a minute? No more
Ophel. No more but so
Laer. Thinke it no more:
For nature cressant does not grow alone,
Hamlet |
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 Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: establishing the doubtful doctrine of the /libre arbitre/,--liberty of
will. Two other centuries were employed in developing the first
corollary of liberty of will, namely, liberty of conscience. Our
century is endeavoring to establish the second, namely, political
liberty.
Placed between the ground already lost and the ground still to be
defended, Catherine and the Church proclaimed the salutary principle
of modern societies, /una fides, unus dominus/, using their power of
life and death upon the innovators. Though Catherine was vanquished,
succeeding centuries have proved her justification. The product of
liberty of will, religious liberty, and political liberty (not,
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