| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: name the Jew's ransom, and the Jew name the
Prior's?''
``Thou art a mad knave,'' said the Captain, ``but
thy plan transcends!---Here, Jew, step forth---
Look at that holy Father Aymer, Prior of the rich
Abbey of Jorvaulx, and tell us at what ransom we
should hold him?---Thou knowest the income of
his convent, I warrant thee.''
``O, assuredly,'' said Isaac. ``I have trafficked
with the good fathers, and bought wheat and barley,
and fruits of the earth, and also much wool.
Ivanhoe |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: her eyes to cease from weeping. So she washed her in water,
and took to her clean raiment, and ascended to the upper
chamber with the women her handmaids, and placed the meal
for sprinkling in a basket, and prayed unto Athene:
'Hear me, child of Zeus, lord of the aegis, unwearied
maiden! If ever wise Odysseus in his halls burnt for thee
fat slices of the thighs of heifer or of sheep, these
things, I pray thee, now remember, and save my dear son,
and ward from him the wooers in the naughtiness of their
pride.'
Therewith she raised a cry, and the goddess heard her
The Odyssey |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde: Agues and chills, and other maladies
Most incident to old age?
No, no, he will not die, he is too sinful;
Honest men die before their proper time.
Good men will die: men by whose side the Duke
In all the sick pollution of his life
Seems like a leper: women and children die,
But the Duke will not die, he is too sinful.
Oh, can it be
There is some immortality in sin,
Which virtue has not? And does the wicked man
|
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 Hellenica by Xenophon: possible secrecy. As soon as the enemy's vessels came sailing past he
gave chase; and they catching sight of him took to flight. With his
swiftest sailors he speedily overhauled their laggards, and ordering
his vanguard to let these alone, he followed hard on those ahead. But
when the foremost had fallen into his clutches, the enemy's hinder
vessels, seeing their leaders taken one by one, out of sheer
despondency fell an easy prey to the slower sailors of the foe, so
that not one of the eight vessels escaped.
[15] His name occurs on the famous stele of the new Athenian
confederacy, B.C. 378. See Hicks, 81; Kohler, "C. I. A." ii. 17;
Demos. "de. Cor." p. 301; Arist. "Rhet." ii. 23; Demos. "c.
|
