| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm: without letting the bird that is sitting upon them and hatching them
know anything of what you are doing.' So the cunning thief climbed up
the tree, and brought away to his father the five eggs from under the
bird; and it never saw or felt what he was doing, but kept sitting on
at its ease. Then the father took the eggs, and put one on each corner
of the table, and the fifth in the middle, and said to the huntsman,
'Cut all the eggs in two pieces at one shot.' The huntsman took up his
bow, and at one shot struck all the five eggs as his father wished.
'Now comes your turn,' said he to the young tailor; 'sew the eggs and
the young birds in them together again, so neatly that the shot shall
have done them no harm.' Then the tailor took his needle, and sewed
Grimm's Fairy Tales |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Helen of Troy And Other Poems by Sara Teasdale: And look adown your tower's gray side --
The princess gazes far away,
Nor hears nor heeds the words I cried.
Perchance my heart was overbold,
God made her dreams too pure to break,
She sees the angels in the air
Fly to and fro for Mary's sake.
Farewell, I mount and go my way,
-- But oh her hair the sun sifts thro' --
The tilts and tourneys wait my spear,
I am the Knight of the Plume of Blue.
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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 Euthyphro by Plato: is the more extended notion of which piety is only a part. Do you dissent?
EUTHYPHRO: No, I think that you are quite right.
SOCRATES: Then, if piety is a part of justice, I suppose that we should
enquire what part? If you had pursued the enquiry in the previous cases;
for instance, if you had asked me what is an even number, and what part of
number the even is, I should have had no difficulty in replying, a number
which represents a figure having two equal sides. Do you not agree?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, I quite agree.
SOCRATES: In like manner, I want you to tell me what part of justice is
piety or holiness, that I may be able to tell Meletus not to do me
injustice, or indict me for impiety, as I am now adequately instructed by
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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 The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: Our glances, however, rested not long upon the dead--for we could
not regard her unawed. The disease which had thus entombed the
lady in the maturity of youth, had left, as usual in all maladies
of a strictly cataleptical character, the mockery of a faint
blush upon the bosom and the face, and that suspiciously
lingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death. We
replaced and screwed down the lid, and, having secured the door
of iron, made our way, with toil, into the scarcely less gloomy
apartments of the upper portion of the house.
And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an
observable change came over the features of the mental disorder
The Fall of the House of Usher |
