| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: FOR SELF-BLAME
LORD, enlighten us to see the beam that is in our own eye, and
blind us to the mote that is in our brother's. Let us feel our
offences with our hands, make them great and bright before us like
the sun, make us eat them and drink them for our diet. Blind us to
the offences of our beloved, cleanse them from our memories, take
them out of our mouths for ever. Let all here before Thee carry
and measure with the false balances of love, and be in their own
eyes and in all conjunctures the most guilty. Help us at the same
time with the grace of courage, that we be none of us cast down
when we sit lamenting amid the ruins of our happiness or our
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: The hot, humid atmosphere of Caspak condenses as it is fanned
by the cold Antarctic air-currents which sweep across the
crater's top, sending a tenuous ribbon of vapor far out across
the Pacific. Through this the picture gave one the suggestion
of a colossal impressionistic canvas in greens and browns and
scarlets and yellows surrounding the deep blue of the inland
sea--just blobs of color taking form through the tumbling mist.
I dived close to the cliffs and skirted them for several miles
without finding the least indication of a suitable landing-place;
and then I swung back at a lower level, looking for a clearing
close to the bottom of the mighty escarpment; but I could find
The People That Time Forgot |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: Please, therefore, to inform me whether you admit the truth of what Critias
has been saying;--have you or have you not this quality of temperance?
Charmides blushed, and the blush heightened his beauty, for modesty is
becoming in youth; he then said very ingenuously, that he really could not
at once answer, either yes, or no, to the question which I had asked: For,
said he, if I affirm that I am not temperate, that would be a strange thing
for me to say of myself, and also I should give the lie to Critias, and
many others who think as he tells you, that I am temperate: but, on the
other hand, if I say that I am, I shall have to praise myself, which would
be ill manners; and therefore I do not know how to answer you.
I said to him: That is a natural reply, Charmides, and I think that you
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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 Lysis by Plato: sake of which gold and all our other possessions are acquired by us. Am I
not right?
Yes, certainly.
And may not the same be said of the friend? That which is only dear to us
for the sake of something else is improperly said to be dear, but the truly
dear is that in which all these so-called dear friendships terminate.
That, he said, appears to be true.
And the truly dear or ultimate principle of friendship is not for the sake
of any other or further dear.
True.
Then we have done with the notion that friendship has any further object.
Lysis |
