| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Apology by Xenophon: lover of healthy honest toil has become effeminate, or under the
thrall of some other wicked pleasure."
[28] Lit. "whom do you know," and so throughout.
[29] Cf. Plat. "Phaed." 66 C.
[30] Or, "so attempered and adjusted." The phrase savours of "cynic."
theory.
[31] Or, "present no temptation to him"; lit. "that he stands in no
further need of what belongs to his neighbours."
[32] {ta legomena}, "the meaning of words and the force of argument."
[33] {ek panton}. Cf. Thuc. i. 120, {osper kai en allois ek panton
protimontai (oi egemones)}, "as they (leaders) are first in
The Apology |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: essential incidents. It is always an unerring archer who, at
the capricious command of a tyrant, shoots from the head of
some one dear to him a small object, be it an apple, a nut, or
a piece of coin. The archer always provides himself with a
second arrow, and, when questioned as to the use he intended
to make of his extra weapon, the invariable reply is, "To kill
thee, tyrant, had I slain my son." Now, when a marvellous
occurrence is said to have happened everywhere, we may feel
sure that it never happened anywhere. Popular fancies
propagate themselves indefinitely, but historical events,
especially the striking and dramatic ones, are rarely
Myths and Myth-Makers |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: disgusted me. No doubt, apparently, about your conquest! In sober
earnest, your self-possession alarms me. Not a trace in you of the
humble slave of your first letter. Far from betraying the absent-
mindedness of a lover, you polished epigrams! This is not the attitude
of a true believer, always prostrate before his divinity.
If you do not feel me to be the very breath of your life, a being
nobler than other women, and to be judged by other standards, then I
must be less than a woman in your sight. You have roused in me a
spirit of mistrust, Felipe, and its angry mutterings have drowned the
accents of tenderness. When I look back upon what has passed between
us, I feel in truth that I have a right to be suspicious. For know,
|
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 The Message by Honore de Balzac: vehicle and clinging tightly to the roof, as I did. He either
miscalculated in some way, or he slipped; how it happened, I do
not know, but the coach fell over upon him, and he was crushed
under it.
We carried him into a peasant's cottage, and there, amid the
moans wrung from him by horrible sufferings, he contrived to give
me a commission--a sacred task, in that it was laid upon me by a
dying man's last wish. Poor boy, all through his agony he was
torturing himself in his young simplicity of heart with the
thought of the painful shock to his mistress when she should
suddenly read of his death in a newspaper. He begged me to go
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