| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: natural freedom of conversation.
Phaedrus has been spending the morning with Lysias, the celebrated
rhetorician, and is going to refresh himself by taking a walk outside the
wall, when he is met by Socrates, who professes that he will not leave him
until he has delivered up the speech with which Lysias has regaled him, and
which he is carrying about in his mind, or more probably in a book hidden
under his cloak, and is intending to study as he walks. The imputation is
not denied, and the two agree to direct their steps out of the public way
along the stream of the Ilissus towards a plane-tree which is seen in the
distance. There, lying down amidst pleasant sounds and scents, they will
read the speech of Lysias. The country is a novelty to Socrates, who never
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pathology of Lying, Etc. by William and Mary Healy: definitive ``forms of insanity.'' They may be lacking in normal
social control and in ability to reason, impulsively inclined to
anti-social deeds and therefore social menaces, but,
notwithstanding this, may not be classified under the head of any
of the ordinary text-book types of mental diseases.
It is clear that for the protection of society a different notion
of what constitutes mental aberration or insanity should prevail,
so that these unusually dangerous types might be permanently
segregated. It would really seem that just the findings which
the hospital statement enumerates would convince one of this
individual's marked abnormality from a social point of view and
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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 The Sportsman by Xenophon: of the Hellenes) prizes of valour, to Telamon he gave."
[19] See Hom. "Il." v. 640; Strab. xiii. 595.
[20] See Diod. iv. 32; i. 42.
Of Meleager[21] be it said, whereas the honours which he won are
manifest, the misfortunes on which he fell, when his father[22] in old
age forgot the goddess, were not of his own causing.[23]
[21] For the legend of Meleager see "Il." ix. 524-599, dramatised by
both Sophocles and Euripides, and in our day by Swinburne,
"Atalanta in Calydon." Cf. Paus. iii. 8. 9; viii. 54. 4; Ov.
"Met." viii. 300; Grote, "H. G." i. 195.
[22] i.e. Oeneus. "Il." ix. 535.
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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 Marie by H. Rider Haggard: "Because if you neglect it, baas, I think that we shall stop here for
ever. Oh! you may laugh, but I tell you that already you have brought
ill-luck upon yourself. Remember my words, baas, when you miss two of
the five aasvogels."
"Bosh!" I exclaimed, or, rather, its Dutch equivalent. Still, as this
talk of missing vultures touched me nearly, and it is always as well to
conform to native prejudices, at the next and two subsequent heaps I
cast my stone as humbly as the most superstitious Zulu in the land.
By this time we had reached the summit, which may have been two hundred
yards long. It was hog-backed in shape, with a kind of depression in
the middle cleared of stones, either by the hand of man or nature, and
Marie |
