| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: Or he refused to take her figured proffer,
The tender nibbler would not touch the bait,
But smile and jest at every gentle offer:
Then fell she on her back, fair queen, and toward:
He rose and ran away; ah, fool too froward!
V.
If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?
O never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd:
Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll constant prove;
Those thoughts, to me like oaks, to thee like osiers bow'd.
Study his bias leaves, and make his book thine eyes,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: pipe there; and so a barn was burnt. He had the reputation
of being a clever man, had been there some three months
waiting for his trial to come on, and would have to wait as
much longer; but he was quite domesticated and contented,
since he got his board for nothing, and thought that he was
well treated.
He occupied one window, and I the other; and I saw that
if one stayed there long, his principal business would be to
look out the window. I had soon read all the tracts that
were left there, and examined where former prisoners had
broken out, and where a grate had been sawed off, and heard
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: reason that I moved you should buy the spoons, and stayed
till you had bought them, for if you had not had money to pay
for them, I should have suspected that you did not come into
the shop with an intent to buy, for indeed the sort of people
who come upon these designs that you have been charged
with, are seldom troubled with much gold in their pockets,
as I see you are.'
I smiled, and told his worship, that then I owed something of
his favour to my money, but I hoped he saw reason also in
the justice he had done me before. He said, yes, he had, but
this had confirmed his opinion, and he was fully satisfied now
Moll Flanders |
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 Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: understand, and the ridiculous interpretation of Homer, are entirely in the
spirit of Plato (compare Protag; Ion; Apol.). The characters are ill-
drawn. Socrates assumes the 'superior person' and preaches too much, while
Alcibiades is stupid and heavy-in-hand. There are traces of Stoic
influence in the general tone and phraseology of the Dialogue (compare opos
melesei tis...kaka: oti pas aphron mainetai): and the writer seems to
have been acquainted with the 'Laws' of Plato (compare Laws). An incident
from the Symposium is rather clumsily introduced, and two somewhat
hackneyed quotations (Symp., Gorg.) recur. The reference to the death of
Archelaus as having occurred 'quite lately' is only a fiction, probably
suggested by the Gorgias, where the story of Archelaus is told, and a
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