| 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: Clearly.
Then the friend is a friend for the sake of the friend, and because of the
enemy?
That is to be inferred.
Then at this point, my boys, let us take heed, and be on our guard against
deceptions. I will not again repeat that the friend is the friend of the
friend, and the like of the like, which has been declared by us to be an
impossibility; but, in order that this new statement may not delude us, let
us attentively examine another point, which I will proceed to explain:
Medicine, as we were saying, is a friend, or dear to us for the sake of
health?
Lysis |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: matter are entirely and absolutely wrong. We have mistaken the
common livery of the age for the vesture of the Muses, and spend
our days in the sordid streets and hideous suburbs of our vile
cities when we should be out on the hillside with Apollo.
Certainly we are a degraded race, and have sold our birthright for
a mess of facts.
CYRIL. There is something in what you say, and there is no doubt
that whatever amusement we may find in reading a purely model
novel, we have rarely any artistic pleasure in re-reading it. And
this is perhaps the best rough test of what is literature and what
is not. If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again,
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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 Tattine by Ruth Ogden [Mrs. Charles W. Ide]: she was seeking, made one bound for her with her rake, and with such a scream
as certainly to scare little Black-and-white out of at least one of the nine
lives to which she is supposed to be entitled. But pussy was too swift and
swiftly scrambled to the very topmost twig that would hold her weight, while
Tattine danced about in helpless rage on the grass beneath the tree. "Tattine
is having a fit," thought little Black-and-white, scared half to death and
quite ready to have a little fit of her own, to judge from her wild eyes and
bristling tail.
Tattine's futile rage was followed in a few minutes by, "Oh, Patrick, I never
dreamt it was Kittie. Has SHE been TRAINED to do it, do you think?"
"Oh. no, miss; it just comes natural to cats and kittens to prey upon birds
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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 Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: the cab; and, getting down, found himself in quite a country
road, the last lamp of the suburb shining some way below, and
the high walls of a garden rising before him in the dark.
The Lodge (as the place was named), stood, indeed, very
solitary. To the south it adjoined another house, but
standing in so large a garden as to be well out of cry; on
all other sides, open fields stretched upward to the woods of
Corstorphine Hill, or backward to the dells of Ravelston, or
downward toward the valley of the Leith. The effect of
seclusion was aided by the great height of the garden walls,
which were, indeed, conventual, and, as John had tested in
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