| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: at an impossible angle, but sheer below ran out a narrow bench
fifty yards wide. Around the point of the hill to my right-where
the herd had gone-a game trail dropped steeply to this bench. I
arrived just in time to see the sing-sing, still trotting, file
across the bench and over its edge, on some other invisible game
trail, to continue their descent of the cliff. The big buck
brought up the rear. At the very edge he came to a halt, and
looked back, throwing his head up and his nose out so that the
heavy fur on his neck stood forward like a ruff. It was a last
glimpse of him, so I held my little best, and pulled trigger.
This happened to be one of those shots I spoke of-which the
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: corporal, said my uncle Toby, for in going that way to work with the town,
the English garrison will not be safe in it an hour; because if the French
are treacherous--They are as treacherous as devils, an' please your honour,
said the corporal--It gives me concern always when I hear it, Trim, said my
uncle Toby;--for they don't want personal bravery; and if a breach is made
in the ramparts, they may enter it, and make themselves masters of the
place when they please:--Let them enter it, said the corporal, lifting up
his pioneer's spade in both his hands, as if he was going to lay about him
with it,--let them enter, an' please your honour, if they dare.--In cases
like this, corporal, said my uncle Toby, slipping his right hand down to
the middle of his cane, and holding it afterwards truncheon-wise with his
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: is very far from making Socrates always argue on the side of truth. The
over-reasoning on Homer, which is of course satirical, is also in the
spirit of Plato. Poetry turned logic is even more ridiculous than
'rhetoric turned logic,' and equally fallacious. There were reasoners in
ancient as well as in modern times, who could never receive the natural
impression of Homer, or of any other book which they read. The argument of
Socrates, in which he picks out the apparent inconsistencies and
discrepancies in the speech and actions of Achilles, and the final paradox,
'that he who is true is also false,' remind us of the interpretation by
Socrates of Simonides in the Protagoras, and of similar reasonings in the
first book of the Republic. The discrepancies which Socrates discovers in
|
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 New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: But an hour you toil and combat here in day's inspiring eye.
See the feet of your deliverer; lo, the hour of freedom nigh.
I NOW, O FRIEND, WHOM NOISELESSLY THE SNOWS
I NOW, O friend, whom noiselessly the snows
Settle around, and whose small chamber grows
Dusk as the sloping window takes its load:
* * * * *
The kindly hill, as to complete our hap,
Has ta'en us in the shelter of her lap;
Well sheltered in our slender grove of trees
And ring of walls, we sit between her knees;
|
