| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from On Revenues by Xenophon: forts and docks, and to reinstate in their ancient privileges our
priests, our senators, our magistrates, and our knights--surely it
were but reasonable to enter upon this project speedily, so that we
too, even in our own day, may witness the unclouded dawn of prosperity
in store for our city.
But if you are agreed to carry out this plan, there is one further
counsel which I would urge upon you. Send to Dodona and to Delphi, I
would beg you, and consult the will of Heaven whether such a provision
and such a policy on our part be truly to the interest of Athens both
for the present and for the time to come. If the consent of Heaven be
thus obtained, we ought then, I say, to put a further question: whose
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: intelligible world...So we may perhaps venture to paraphrase or interpret
or put into other words the parable in which Plato has wrapped up his
conception of the creation of the world. The explanation may help to fill
up with figures of speech the void of knowledge.
The entire compound was divided by the Creator in certain proportions and
reunited; it was then cut into two strips, which were bent into an inner
circle and an outer, both moving with an uniform motion around a centre,
the outer circle containing the fixed, the inner the wandering stars. The
soul of the world was diffused everywhere from the centre to the
circumference. To this God gave a body, consisting at first of fire and
earth, and afterwards receiving an addition of air and water; because solid
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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 Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: Some time before the opening of this story, the need arose at the
prefecture for bringing an editor from Paris for the official
newspaper, to enable it to hold its own against the little /Gazette/,
dropped at Besancon by the great /Gazette/, and the /Patriot/, which
frisked in the hands of the Republicans. Paris sent them a young man,
knowing nothing about la Franche Comte, who began by writing them a
leading article of the school of the /Charivari/. The chief of the
moderate party, a member of the municipal council, sent for the
journalist and said to him, "You must understand, monsieur, that we
are serious, more than serious--tiresome; we resent being amused, and
are furious at having been made to laugh. Be as hard of digestion as
Albert Savarus |
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 Ion by Plato: ION: To Homer only; he is in himself quite enough.
SOCRATES: Are there any things about which Homer and Hesiod agree?
ION: Yes; in my opinion there are a good many.
SOCRATES: And can you interpret better what Homer says, or what Hesiod
says, about these matters in which they agree?
ION: I can interpret them equally well, Socrates, where they agree.
SOCRATES: But what about matters in which they do not agree?--for example,
about divination, of which both Homer and Hesiod have something to say,--
ION: Very true:
SOCRATES: Would you or a good prophet be a better interpreter of what
these two poets say about divination, not only when they agree, but when
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