| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: He had entered a house about eight in the morning, forced a trunk,
and stolen eleven hundred francs; and now, under the horrors of
darkness, solitude, and a bedevilled cannibal imagination, he was
reluctantly confessing and giving up his spoil. From one cache,
which he had already pointed out, three hundred francs had been
recovered, and it was expected that he would presently disgorge the
rest. This would be ugly enough if it were all; but I am bound to
say, because it is a matter the French should set at rest, that
worse is continually hinted. I heard that one man was kept six
days with his arms bound backward round a barrel; and it is the
universal report that every gendarme in the South Seas is equipped
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: consideration. It seems to me to be a wild thing (The Homeric word margos
is said to be here employed in allusion to the quotation from the
'Margites' which Socrates has just made; but it is not used in the sense
which it has in Homer.) to make such a request; a man must be very careful
lest he pray for evil under the idea that he is asking for good, when
shortly after he may have to recall his prayer, and, as you were saying,
demand the opposite of what he at first requested.
SOCRATES: And was not the poet whose words I originally quoted wiser than
we are, when he bade us (pray God) to defend us from evil even though we
asked for it?
ALCIBIADES: I believe that you are right.
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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 Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: be circumcised. For, as he would not offend or contemn any one's
weakness in faith, but yielded for the time to their will, so,
again, he would not have the liberty of faith offended or
contemned by hardened self-justifiers, but walked in a middle
path, sparing the weak for the time, and always resisting the
hardened, that he might convert all to the liberty of faith. On
the same principle we ought to act, receiving those that are weak
in the faith, but boldly resisting these hardened teachers of
works, of whom we shall hereafter speak at more length.
Christ also, when His disciples were asked for the tribute money,
asked of Peter whether the children of a king were not free from
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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 Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: cure me; but even with his ministrations I am almost incapable of
the exertion sufficient for this letter; and I am really, as I
write, falling down with sleep. What is necessary to say, I must
try to say shortly. Lloyd goes to clear out our establishments:
pray keep him in funds, if I have any; if I have not, pray try to
raise them. Here is the idea: to install ourselves, at the risk
of bankruptcy, in Samoa. It is not the least likely it will pay
(although it may); but it is almost certain it will support life,
with very few external expenses. If I die, it will be an endowment
for the survivors, at least for my wife and Lloyd; and my mother,
who might prefer to go home, has her own. Hence I believe I shall
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