| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: LACHES: You are right.
SOCRATES: Then, according to you, only the wise endurance is courage?
LACHES: True.
SOCRATES: But as to the epithet 'wise,'--wise in what? In all things
small as well as great? For example, if a man shows the quality of
endurance in spending his money wisely, knowing that by spending he will
acquire more in the end, do you call him courageous?
LACHES: Assuredly not.
SOCRATES: Or, for example, if a man is a physician, and his son, or some
patient of his, has inflammation of the lungs, and begs that he may be
allowed to eat or drink something, and the other is firm and refuses; is
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: Then a hall, which led to the study, where books and papers were piled
on the shelves of a book-case that enclosed three quarters of the big
black desk. Two panels were entirely hidden under pen-and-ink
sketches, Gouache landscapes and Audran engravings, relics of better
times and vanished luxury. On the second floor, a garret-window
lighted Felicite's room, which looked out upon the meadows.
She arose at daybreak, in order to attend mass, and she worked without
interruption until night; then, when dinner was over, the dishes
cleared away and the door securely locked, she would bury the log
under the ashes and fall asleep in front of the hearth with a rosary
in her hand. Nobody could bargain with greater obstinacy, and as for
A Simple Soul |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Hamlet by William Shakespeare: Both. Wee'l wait vpon you
Ham. No such matter. I will not sort you with the
rest of my seruants: for to speake to you like an honest
man: I am most dreadfully attended; but in the beaten
way of friendship, What make you at Elsonower?
Rosin. To visit you my Lord, no other occasion
Ham. Begger that I am, I am euen poore in thankes;
but I thanke you: and sure deare friends my thanks
are too deare a halfepeny; were you not sent for? Is it
your owne inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come,
deale iustly with me: come, come; nay speake
Hamlet |
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 A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson: These rhymes of old delight
And house and garden play,
You too, my cousins, and you only, may.
You in a garden green
With me were king and queen,
Were hunter, soldier, tar,
And all the thousand things that children are.
Now in the elders' seat
We rest with quiet feet,
And from the window-bay
We watch the children, our successors, play.
A Child's Garden of Verses |
