| 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: Socrates, will be exposed if you accomplish your intentions; you, above all
other Athenians.' Suppose now I ask, why I rather than anybody else? they
will justly retort upon me that I above all other men have acknowledged the
agreement. 'There is clear proof,' they will say, 'Socrates, that we and
the city were not displeasing to you. Of all Athenians you have been the
most constant resident in the city, which, as you never leave, you may be
supposed to love (compare Phaedr.). For you never went out of the city
either to see the games, except once when you went to the Isthmus, or to
any other place unless when you were on military service; nor did you
travel as other men do. Nor had you any curiosity to know other states or
their laws: your affections did not go beyond us and our state; we were
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling: elephants' teeth, and thither by help of the Wise Iron
would Witta go. Witta feared nothing - except to be poor.
"'My father told me," said Witta, "that a great Shoal
runs three days' sail out from that land, and south of the
shoal lies a Forest which grows in the sea. South and east
of the Forest my father came to a place where the men hid
gold in their hair; but all that country, he said, was full of
Devils who lived in trees, and tore folk limb from limb.
How think ye?"
"'Gold or no gold," said Hugh, fingering his sword, "it
is a joyous venture. Have at these Devils of thine, Witta!"
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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 Little Britain by Washington Irving: any good to come of taking down that steeple, which in old
times told nothing but glad tidings, as the history of
Whittington and his Cat bears witness.
The rival oracle of Little Britain is a substantial
cheesemonger, who lives in a fragment of one of the old family
mansions, and is as magnificently lodged as a round-bellied
mite in the midst of one of his own Cheshires. Indeed, he is a
man of no little standing and importance; and his renown
extends through Huggin Lane, and Lad Lane, and even unto
Aldermanbury. His opinion is very much taken in affairs of
state, having read the Sunday papers for the last half century,
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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 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: accomplished voyage has been realized in merchandise that will
readily be turned to gold, or has buried him under a bulk of
incommodities such as nobody will care to rid him of. Here,
likewise -- the germ of the wrinkle-browed, grizzly-bearded,
careworn merchant -- we have the smart young clerk, who gets the
taste of traffic as a wolf-cub does of blood, and already sends
adventures in his master's ships, when he had better be sailing
mimic boats upon a mill-pond. Another figure in the scene is the
outward-bound sailor, in quest of a protection; or the recently
arrived one, pale and feeble, seeking a passport to the hospital.
Nor must we forget the captains of the rusty little schooners
The Scarlet Letter |
