| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: administer the state, and still remains, has entered into an implied
contract that he will do as we command him. And he who disobeys us is, as
we maintain, thrice wrong: first, because in disobeying us he is
disobeying his parents; secondly, because we are the authors of his
education; thirdly, because he has made an agreement with us that he will
duly obey our commands; and he neither obeys them nor convinces us that our
commands are unjust; and we do not rudely impose them, but give him the
alternative of obeying or convincing us;--that is what we offer, and he
does neither.
'These are the sort of accusations to which, as we were saying, you,
Socrates, will be exposed if you accomplish your intentions; you, above all
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Poems of William Blake by William Blake: Or Love in a golden bowl?
THE BOOK of THEL
The Author & Printer Willm. Blake. 1780
THEL
I
The daughters of Mne Seraphim led round their sunny flocks,
All but the youngest: she in paleness sought the secret air.
To fade away like morning beauty from her mortal day:
Down by the river of Adona her soft voice is heard;
And thus her gentle lamentation falls like morning dew.
O life of this our spring! why fades the lotus of the water?
Poems of William Blake |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Vailima Letters by Robert Louis Stevenson: Perpend. And help if you can.
Lafaele, long (I hope) familiar to you, has this day received
the visit of his SON from Tonga; and the SON proves to be a
very pretty, attractive young daughter! I gave all the boys
kava in honour of her arrival; along with a lean, side-
whiskered Tongan, dimly supposed to be Lafaele's step-father;
and they have been having a good time; in the end of my
verandah, I hear Simi, my present incapable steward, talking
Tongan with the nondescript papa. Simi, our out-door boy,
burst a succession of blood-vessels over our work, and I had
to make a position for the wreck of one of the noblest
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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 Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: the disappointment is irremediably embittered. How comfortless is
the sorrow of him who feels at once the pangs of guilt and the
vexation of calamity which guilt has brought upon him!
"Consider, Princess, what would have been your condition if the
Lady Pekuah had entreated to accompany you, and, being compelled to
stay in the tents, had been carried away; or how would you have
borne the thought if you had forced her into the Pyramid, and she
had died before you in agonies of terror?"
"Had either happened," said Nekayah, "I could not have endured life
till now; I should have been tortured to madness by the remembrance
of such cruelty, or must have pined away in abhorrence of myself."
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