| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: like what we call parishes, there should be one man at least of
abilities to read and write. Then it seems a wrong computation
that the revenues of the Church throughout this island would be
large enough to maintain two hundred young gentlemen, or even half
that number, after the present refined way of living, that is, to
allow each of them such a rent as, in the modern form of speech,
would make them easy. But still there is in this project a greater
mischief behind; and we ought to beware of the woman's folly, who
killed the hen that every morning laid her a golden egg. For, pray
what would become of the race of men in the next age, if we had
nothing to trust to beside the scrofulous consumptive production
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: vintage house, which belongs to a substantial burgess of Tours, has
charms for every imagination, for the humblest and dullest as well as
for the most impassioned and lofty. No one can dwell there without
feeling that happiness is in the air, without a glimpse of all that is
meant by a peaceful life without care or ambition. There is that in
the air and the sound of the river that sets you dreaming; the sands
have a language, and are joyous or dreary, golden or wan; and the
owner of the vineyard may sit motionless amid perennial flowers and
tempting fruit, and feel all the stir of the world about him.
If an Englishman takes the house for the summer, he is asked a
thousand francs for six months, the produce of the vineyard not
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: a part of philosophy, but as an innocent recreation (Tim.).
Passing on to the Parmenides, we find in that dialogue not an exposition or
defence of the doctrine of ideas, but an assault upon them, which is put
into the mouth of the veteran Parmenides, and might be ascribed to
Aristotle himself, or to one of his disciples. The doctrine which is
assailed takes two or three forms, but fails in any of them to escape the
dialectical difficulties which are urged against it. It is admitted that
there are ideas of all things, but the manner in which individuals partake
of them, whether of the whole or of the part, and in which they become like
them, or how ideas can be either within or without the sphere of human
knowledge, or how the human and divine can have any relation to each other,
|
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 Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: crossed his mind to hunt other pupils for his vacant time, but he
decided against this at once, and returned to his own room. Three
o'clock found him back at the door, knocking scrupulously, The idea of
performing his side of the contract, of tendering his goods and standing
ready at all times to deliver them, was in his commercially mature mind.
This time he had brought a neat piece of paper with him, and wrote upon
it, "Called, three P.M.," and signed it as before, and departed to his
room with a sense of fulfilled obligations.
Bertie and Billy had lunched at Mattapan quite happily on cold ham, cold
pie, and doughnuts. Mattapan, not being accustomed to such lilies of
the field, stared at their clothes and general glory, but observed that
|
