| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: us attentively examine another point, which I will proceed to explain:
Medicine, as we were saying, is a friend, or dear to us for the sake of
health?
Yes.
And health is also dear?
Certainly.
And if dear, then dear for the sake of something?
Yes.
And surely this object must also be dear, as is implied in our previous
admissions?
Yes.
Lysis |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: and set themselves to the interesting and necessary work of gaining
their own experience. Once, indeed, a dreadful thing happened,
whose immediate consequence was the abrupt end to the long
and close friendship between us and our nearest neighbour.
His son was brought to the arbour and left there in the usual way,
and either he <84> must have happened on the critical
half hour after the coffee and before the Kreuzzeitung,
when my grandfather was accustomed to sleep, or he was more
courageous than the others and tried to talk, for very shortly,
playing as usual near at hand, I heard my grandfather's voice,
raised to an extent that made me stop in my game and quake, saying
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: jest and go and come back, and all the while build.
We got it more and more definite that the core of our purpose
beneath all its varied aspects must needs be order and discipline.
"Muddle," said I, "is the enemy." That remains my belief to this
day. Clearness and order, light and foresight, these things I know
for Good. It was muddle had just given us all the still freshly
painful disasters and humiliations of the war, muddle that gives us
the visibly sprawling disorder of our cities and industrial country-
side, muddle that gives us the waste of life, the limitations,
wretchedness and unemployment of the poor. Muddle! I remember
myself quoting Kipling--
|
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 Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: his grip upon her.
Once he looked down into her eyes and smiled, and the
girl had to close her own to shut out the vision of that
handsome, winning face.
Presently Tarzan took to the trees, and Jane, wondering
that she felt no fear, began to realize that in many respects
she had never felt more secure in her whole life than now as
she lay in the arms of this strong, wild creature, being borne,
God alone knew where or to what fate, deeper and deeper
into the savage fastness of the untamed forest.
When, with closed eyes, she commenced to speculate upon
Tarzan of the Apes |
