| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: agree among themselves about the meaning of the word. Still less can they
impart to others a common conception or conviction of the nature of
happiness. The meaning of the word is always insensibly slipping away from
us, into pleasure, out of pleasure, now appearing as the motive, now as the
test of actions, and sometimes varying in successive sentences. And as in
a mathematical demonstration an error in the original number disturbs the
whole calculation which follows, this fundamental uncertainty about the
word vitiates all the applications of it. Must we not admit that a notion
so uncertain in meaning, so void of content, so at variance with common
language and opinion, does not comply adequately with either of our two
requirements? It can neither strike the imaginative faculty, nor give an
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft: you that at his own expense he fitted out a vessel, and established
himself at Borneo, where he soon acquired so great [an] ascendancy
over the native Rajah, that he insisted on resigning to him the
government of his province of Sarawak. Here, with only three
European companions, by moral and intellectual force alone, he
succeeded in suppressing piracy and civil war among the natives and
opened a trade with the interior of Borneo which promises great
advantages to England. . . . Everybody here has the INFLUENZA--a
right-down influenza, that sends people to their beds. Those who
have triumphed at their exemption in the evening, wake up perhaps in
the morning full of aches in every limb, and scoff no longer. . . .
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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 Mother by Owen Wister: magnificent autumn season. At nightfall, the great house itself received
us in the arms of supreme comfort, fed us sumptuously, and after dinner
ministered to our middle-aged bodies with chairs and sofas of the highest
development.
The plan devised by our hostess, Mrs. Davenport, that a story should be
told by one of us each evening, had met with courtesy, but not I with
immediate enthusiasm. But Mrs. Davenport had chosen her guests with her
usual wisdom, and after the first experiment, story telling proved so
successful that none of us would have readily abandoned it. When the time
had come for Richard Field to entertain the company with the promised
tale from his life experience, his hope of escaping this ordeal had
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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 The Tanach: 2_Kings 5: 3 And she said unto her mistress: 'Would that my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! then would he recover him of his leprosy.'
2_Kings 5: 4 And he went in, and told his lord, saying: `Thus and thus said the maid that is of the land of Israel.'
2_Kings 5: 5 And the king of Aram said: 'Go now, and I will send a letter unto the king of Israel.' And he departed, and took with him ten talents of silver, and six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of raiment.
2_Kings 5: 6 And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, saying: 'And now when this letter is come unto thee, behold, I have sent Naaman my servant to thee, that thou mayest recover him of his leprosy.'
2_Kings 5: 7 And it came to pass, when the king of Israel had read the letter, that he rent his clothes, and said: 'Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy? but consider, I pray you, and see how he seeketh an occasion against me.'
2_Kings 5: 8 And it was so, when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had rent his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying: 'Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel.'
2_Kings 5: 9 So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariots, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha.
The Tanach |
