| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: which is apparent in Aristotle and Hippocrates, although the form of them
is different. But the writings of Plato, unlike the writings of Aristotle,
seem never to have been confused with the writings of his disciples: this
was probably due to their definite form, and to their inimitable
excellence. The three dialogues which we have offered in the Appendix to
the criticism of the reader may be partly spurious and partly genuine; they
may be altogether spurious;--that is an alternative which must be frankly
admitted. Nor can we maintain of some other dialogues, such as the
Parmenides, and the Sophist, and Politicus, that no considerable objection
can be urged against them, though greatly overbalanced by the weight
(chiefly) of internal evidence in their favour. Nor, on the other hand,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dust by Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman-Julius: Rose understood that their first evening and night foreshadowed
their whole lives. Not in what Martin would do, but in what he
would not do, would lie her heartaches. Yet in her sad
reflections there was no bitterness toward him; he had
disappointed her, but perhaps it was only because she had taught
herself to expect something rare, even spiritual, from marriage.
Her idealism had played her a trick.
With the quiet relinquishment of this long-cherished dream,
eagerness for the realization of an even more precious one took
possession of her. She comforted herself with the thought that
maybe life had brought Martin merely as a door to the citadel
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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 Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson: All around the house is the jet-black night;
It stares through the window-pane;
It crawls in the corners, hiding from the light,
And it moves with the moving flame.
Now my little heart goes a beating like a drum,
With the breath of the Bogies in my hair;
And all around the candle and the crooked shadows come,
And go marching along up the stair.
The shadow of the balusters, the shadow of the lamp,
The shadow of the child that goes to bed--
All the wicked shadows coming tramp, tramp, tramp,
A Child's Garden of Verses |
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 Statesman by Plato: or without law, and whether they are poor or rich, and however they govern,
provided they govern on some scientific principle,--it makes no difference.
And as the physician may cure us with our will, or against our will, and by
any mode of treatment, burning, bleeding, lowering, fattening, if he only
proceeds scientifically: so the true governor may reduce or fatten or
bleed the body corporate, while he acts according to the rules of his art,
and with a view to the good of the state, whether according to law or
without law.
'I do not like the notion, that there can be good government without law.'
I must explain: Law-making certainly is the business of a king; and yet
the best thing of all is, not that the law should rule, but that the king
Statesman |
