| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: ignorance of the religions they were trying to supplant.
I quote an American in this connection without scruple. Uncle Sam
is better than John Bull, but he is tarred with the English stick.
For Mr. Grant White the States are the New England States and
nothing more. He wonders at the amount of drinking in London; let
him try San Francisco. He wittily reproves English ignorance as to
the status of women in America; but has he not himself forgotten
Wyoming? The name Yankee, of which he is so tenacious, is used
over the most of the great Union as a term of reproach. The Yankee
States, of which he is so staunch a subject, are but a drop in the
bucket. And we find in his book a vast virgin ignorance of the
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: Philebus, involves the fate of these dialogues, as well as of the two
suspected ones.
4. The suspicion of them seems mainly to rest on a presumption that in
Plato's writings we may expect to find an uniform type of doctrine and
opinion. But however we arrange the order, or narrow the circle of the
dialogues, we must admit that they exhibit a growth and progress in the
mind of Plato. And the appearance of change or progress is not to be
regarded as impugning the genuineness of any particular writings, but may
be even an argument in their favour. If we suppose the Sophist and
Politicus to stand halfway between the Republic and the Laws, and in near
connexion with the Theaetetus, the Parmenides, the Philebus, the arguments
Statesman |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: there was, methinks, a tanning principle which hardened and
consolidated the fibers of men's thoughts. Ah! already I shudder
for these comparatively degenerate days of my native village,
when you cannot collect a load of bark of good thickness, and we
no longer produce tar and turpentine.
The civilized nations--Greece, Rome, England--have been sustained
by the primitive forests which anciently rotted where they stand.
They survive as long as the soil is not exhausted. Alas for human
culture! little is to be expected of a nation, when the vegetable
mould is exhausted, and it is compelled to make manure of the
bones of its fathers. There the poet sustains himself merely by
Walking |
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 Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: O pardon me for bringing these ill newes,
Since you did leaue it for my office Sir
Rom. Is it euen so?
Then I denie you Starres.
Thou knowest my lodging, get me inke and paper,
And hire Post-Horses, I will hence to night
Man. I do beseech you sir, haue patience:
Your lookes are pale and wild, and do import
Some misaduenture
Rom. Tush, thou art deceiu'd,
Leaue me, and do the thing I bid thee do.
Romeo and Juliet |
