| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: conception of the political or royal science as, from another point of
view, the science of sciences, which holds sway over the rest, is not
originally found in Aristotle, but in Plato.
The doctrine that virtue and art are in a mean, which is familiarized to us
by the study of the Nicomachean Ethics, is also first distinctly asserted
in the Statesman of Plato. The too much and the too little are in restless
motion: they must be fixed by a mean, which is also a standard external to
them. The art of measuring or finding a mean between excess and defect,
like the principle of division in the Phaedrus, receives a particular
application to the art of discourse. The excessive length of a discourse
may be blamed; but who can say what is excess, unless he is furnished with
Statesman |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: came. Dr Houghton drew shrunken lids over the glazing grey eyes
as the tumult of birds faded imperceptibly to silence. Lavinia
sobbed, but Wilbur only chuckled whilst the hill noises rumbled
faintly.
'They didn't git him,' he muttered in his heavy bass
voice.
Wilbur was by this time a scholar of really tremendous
erudition in his one-sided way, and was quietly known by correspondence
to many librarians in distant places where rare and forbidden
books of old days are kept. He was more and more hated and dreaded
around Dunwich because of certain youthful disappearances which
The Dunwich Horror |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: inspiration. For three days he never left Coralie's room; he sat at
work by the fire, waited upon by Berenice; petted, in moments of
weariness, by the silent and attentive Coralie; till, at the end of
that time, he had made a fair copy of about three columns of
criticism, and an astonishingly good piece of work.
It was nine o'clock in the evening when he ran round to the office,
found his associates, and read over his work to an attentive audience.
Felicien said not a syllable. He took up the manuscript, and made off
with it pell-mell down the staircase.
"What has come to him?" cried Lucien.
"He has taken your article straight to the printer," said Hector
|
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 Odyssey by Homer: from Zeus, lord of the aegis.'
Thus they spake one to the other. And now the well-builded
ship was being brought to land at Ithaca, the ship that
bare Telemachus from Pylos with all his company. When they
were now come within the deep harbour, the men drew up the
black ship on the shore, while squires, haughty of heart,
bare away their weapons, and straightway carried the
glorious gifts to the house of Clytius. Anon they sent
forward a herald to the house of Odysseus to bear the
tidings to prudent Penelope, namely, how Telemachus was in
the field, and had bidden the ship sail to the city, lest
The Odyssey |
