| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: sword.
"I signed to him to keep away, but he continued to advance.
I told him again very patiently and clearly: 'You must not come
here. These are old temples and I am here with my dead.'
"Presently he was so close I could see his face clearly. It
was a narrow face, with dull gray eyes, and a black moustache. He
had a scar on his upper lip, and he was dirty and unshaven. He
kept shouting unintelligible things, questions, perhaps, at me.
"I know now that he was afraid of me, but at the time that did
not occur to me. As I tried to explain to him, he interrupted me
in imperious tones, bidding me, I suppose, stand aside.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: fear or confidence in their own arts, and yet they are not courageous a
whit the more for that.
SOCRATES: What is Laches saying, Nicias? He appears to be saying
something of importance.
NICIAS: Yes, he is saying something, but it is not true.
SOCRATES: How so?
NICIAS: Why, because he does not see that the physician's knowledge only
extends to the nature of health and disease: he can tell the sick man no
more than this. Do you imagine, Laches, that the physician knows whether
health or disease is the more terrible to a man? Had not many a man better
never get up from a sick bed? I should like to know whether you think that
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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 A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare: If you were ciuill, and knew curtesie,
You would not doe me thus much iniury.
Can you not hate me, as I know you doe,
But you must ioyne in soules to mocke me to?
If you are men, as men you are in show,
You would not vse a gentle Lady so;
To vow, and sweare, and superpraise my parts,
When I am sure you hate me with your hearts.
You both are Riuals, and loue Hermia;
And now both Riuals to mocke Helena.
A trim exploit, a manly enterprize,
A Midsummer Night's Dream |
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 Phaedo by Plato: out of time, which are the only possible explanations of eternal duration,
are equally inconceivable to us, let us substitute for them a hundred or a
thousand years after death, and ask not what will be our employment in
eternity, but what will happen to us in that definite portion of time; or
what is now happening to those who passed out of life a hundred or a
thousand years ago. Do we imagine that the wicked are suffering torments,
or that the good are singing the praises of God, during a period longer
than that of a whole life, or of ten lives of men? Is the suffering
physical or mental? And does the worship of God consist only of praise, or
of many forms of service? Who are the wicked, and who are the good, whom
we venture to divide by a hard and fast line; and in which of the two
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