| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: authority of these secondary communities (and it was impossible
to deprive them of it), they disavowed beforehand the habitual
use of constraint in enforcing g the decisions of the majority.
Upon this principle the introduction of the influence of the
States into the mechanism of the Federal Government was by no
means to be wondered at, since it only attested the existence of
an acknowledged power, which was to be humored and not forcibly
checked.
A Further Difference Between The Senate And The House Of
Representatives
The Senate named by the provincial legislators, the
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: who accompany me to the speech, I become suddenly conscious of having a
sort of triumph over them, and they seem to experience a corresponding
feeling of admiration at me, and at the greatness of the city, which
appears to them, when they are under the influence of the speaker, more
wonderful than ever. This consciousness of dignity lasts me more than
three days, and not until the fourth or fifth day do I come to my senses
and know where I am; in the meantime I have been living in the Islands of
the Blest. Such is the art of our rhetoricians, and in such manner does
the sound of their words keep ringing in my ears.
MENEXENUS: You are always making fun of the rhetoricians, Socrates; this
time, however, I am inclined to think that the speaker who is chosen will
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: Might is right, says the beast; or, rather, it knows no right. The
animal world is a rout of appetites, acknowledging no other rein
than impotence. Mankind, alone capable of emerging from the slough
of the instincts, is bringing equity into being, is creating it
slowly as its conception grows clearer. Out of the sacred
rushlight, so flickering as yet, but gaining strength from age to
age, man will make a flaming torch that will put an end, among us,
to the principles of the brutes and, one day, utterly change the
face of society.
CHAPTER XV: THE LABYRINTH SPIDER
While the Epeirae, with their gorgeous net-tapestries, are
The Life of the Spider |
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 Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson: The heathen hordes, and made a realm and reigned.
Gareth and Lynette
The last tall son of Lot and Bellicent,
And tallest, Gareth, in a showerful spring
Stared at the spate. A slender-shafted Pine
Lost footing, fell, and so was whirled away.
'How he went down,' said Gareth, 'as a false knight
Or evil king before my lance if lance
Were mine to use--O senseless cataract,
Bearing all down in thy precipitancy--
And yet thou art but swollen with cold snows
|
