| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: say that friendship was only a quality, or a relation, or a virtue, or a
kind of virtue; and they had not in the age of Plato reached the point of
regarding it, like justice, as a form or attribute of virtue. They had
another perplexity: 8) How could one of the noblest feelings of human
nature be so near to one of the most detestable corruptions of it?
(Compare Symposium; Laws).
Leaving the Greek or ancient point of view, we may regard the question in a
more general way. Friendship is the union of two persons in mutual
affection and remembrance of one another. The friend can do for his friend
what he cannot do for himself. He can give him counsel in time of
difficulty; he can teach him 'to see himself as others see him'; he can
Lysis |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: the usual irrevocable oblivion. The accuracy of the French was
freely canvassed, and of course it is obvious that the French is not
that of a Frenchman. The play was passed for press, however, by no
less a writer than Marcel Schwob whose letter to the Paris
publisher, returning the proofs and mentioning two or three slight
alterations, is still in my possession. Marcel Schwob told me some
years afterwards that he thought it would have spoiled the
spontaneity and character of Wilde's style if he had tried to
harmonise it with the diction demanded by the French Academy. It
was never composed with any idea of presentation. Madame Bernhardt
happened to say she wished Wilde would write a play for her; he
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: Never mind! Time may right things.... And Sue, darling; I have an idea!
We'll educate and train him with a view to the university.
What I couldn't accomplish in my own person perhaps I can carry
out through him? They are making it easier for poor students now,
you know."
"Oh you dreamer!" said she, and holding his hand returned to the child
with him. The boy looked at her as she had looked at him. "Is it you
who's my REAL mother at last?" he inquired.
"Why? Do I look like your father's wife?"
"Well, yes; 'cept he seems fond of you, and you of him.
Can I call you Mother?"
Jude the Obscure |
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 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: in my regard. I cared not at this period for books; they were
apart from me. Nature -- except it were human nature -- the
nature that is developed in earth and sky, was, in one sense,
hidden from me; and all the imaginative delight wherewith it had
been spiritualized passed away out of my mind. A gift, a
faculty, if it had not been departed, was suspended and inanimate
within me. There would have been something sad, unutterably
dreary, in all this, had I not been conscious that it lay at my
own option to recall whatever was valuable in the past. It might
be true, indeed, that this was a life which could not, with
impunity, be lived too long; else, it might make me permanently
The Scarlet Letter |
