| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Light of Western Stars by Zane Grey: Madeline. "Please tell me what it means, what it's for, and then
take me down there."
"It's sure a sight, Miss Hammond. I'll be glad to take you down,
but I fancy you'll not want to go close. Few Eastern people who
regularly eat their choice cuts of roast beef and porterhouse
have any idea of the open range and the struggle cattle have to
live and the hard life of cowboys. It'll sure open your eyes,
Miss Hammond. I'm glad you care to know. Your brother would
have made a big success in this cattle business if it hadn't been
for crooked work by rival ranchers. He'll make it yet, in spite
of them."
The Light of Western Stars |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: it would clearly not have been unnatural to interpret them as a
revelation of the deity's existence. When we reach the subject
of mysticism, we shall have much more to say upon this head.
Lest the oddity of these phenomena should disconcert you, I will
venture to read you a couple of similar narratives, much shorter,
merely to show that we are dealing with a well-marked natural
kind of fact. In the first case, which I <61> take from the
Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, the sense of
presence developed in a few moments into a distinctly
visualized hallucination--but I leave that part of the story out.
"I had read," the narrator says, "some twenty minutes or so, was
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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 Charmides by Plato: well as the parts, and of the mind as well as the body, which is playfully
intimated in the story of the Thracian; (3) The tendency of the age to
verbal distinctions, which here, as in the Protagoras and Cratylus, are
ascribed to the ingenuity of Prodicus; and to interpretations or rather
parodies of Homer or Hesiod, which are eminently characteristic of Plato
and his contemporaries; (4) The germ of an ethical principle contained in
the notion that temperance is 'doing one's own business,' which in the
Republic (such is the shifting character of the Platonic philosophy) is
given as the definition, not of temperance, but of justice; (5) The
impatience which is exhibited by Socrates of any definition of temperance
in which an element of science or knowledge is not included; (6) The
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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 Flower Fables by Louisa May Alcott: above them, and the birds sang of the same kind little Elf bringing
soft moss for their nests, and food for their hungry young ones;
while all around the hive had grown fairer since the Fairy came.
But the bees never saw him, for he feared he had not yet done enough
to win their forgiveness and friendship; so he lived alone among the
vines, daily bringing them honey, and doing some kindly action.
At length, as he lay sleeping in a flower-bell, a little bee came
wandering by, and knew him for the wicked Thistle; so he called his
friends, and, as they flew murmuring around him, he awoke.
"What shall we do to you, naughty Elf?" said they. "You are in
our power, and we will sting you if you are not still."
Flower Fables |
