| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: to hinder him from asserting positively more than this; and he makes no
attempt to veil his ignorance in mythology and figures of speech. The
gentleness of the first part of the speech contrasts with the aggravated,
almost threatening, tone of the conclusion. He characteristically remarks
that he will not speak as a rhetorician, that is to say, he will not make a
regular defence such as Lysias or one of the orators might have composed
for him, or, according to some accounts, did compose for him. But he first
procures himself a hearing by conciliatory words. He does not attack the
Sophists; for they were open to the same charges as himself; they were
equally ridiculed by the Comic poets, and almost equally hateful to Anytus
and Meletus. Yet incidentally the antagonism between Socrates and the
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: with his turnkey smile, --
"Godson of Cornelius de Witt! Well, young man, we have the
family cell here, and we will give it to you."
And quite enchanted with his joke, the ferocious Orangeman
took his cresset and his keys to conduct Cornelius to the
cell, which on that very morning Cornelius de Witt had left
to go into exile, or what in revolutionary times is meant
instead by those sublime philosophers who lay it down as an
axiom of high policy, "It is the dead only who do not
return."
On the way which the despairing florist had to traverse to
The Black Tulip |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: the 'very me,' that part of me that incessantly and in- solently,
yes, and a little deliberately, triumphs over that other part--a
thing of nerves and tissues that suffers and cries out, and that
must die to-morrow perhaps, or twenty years hence."
Then there was her humour, which was part of her strange wisdom,
and was always awake and on the watch. In all her letters,
written in exquisite English prose, but with an ardent imagery
and a vehement sincerity of emotion which make them, like the
poems, indeed almost more directly, un-English, Oriental, there
was always this intellectual, critical sense of humour, which
could laugh at one's own enthusiasm as frankly as that enthusiasm
|
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 Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: interred where it had been found.
And, several days before, Captain Hotard, of the relief-boat
Estelle Brousseaux, had found, drifting in the open Gulf
(latitude 26 degrees 43 minutes; longitude 88 degrees 17
minutes),--the corpse of a fair-haired woman, clinging to a
table. The body was disfigured beyond recognition: even the
slender bones of the hands had been stripped by the nibs of the
sea-birds-except one finger, the third of the left, which seemed
to have been protected by a ring of gold, as by a charm. Graven
within the plain yellow circlet was a date,--"JUILLET--1851" ;
and the names,--"ADELE + JULIEN,"--separated by a cross. The
|
