| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: all things the least liable to envy; seldom, if ever, an object of
contention;[20] never guarded, yet always safe; the more you starve
it, the stronger it grows.
[20] Cf. Plat. "Rep." 521 A; "Laws," 678 C.
And you, Socrates, yourself (their host demanded), what is it you
pride yourself upon?
Then he, with knitted brows, quite solemnly: On pandering.[21] And
when they laughed to hear him say this,[22] he continued: Laugh to
your hearts content, my friends; but I am certain I could make a
fortune, if I chose to practise this same art.
[21] Or, more politely, "on playing the go-between." See Grote, "H.
The Symposium |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: nothing here but what I dare attest, and plain matter of fact. My
wife at this fell into a violent disorder; and I must own I was a
little discomposed at the oddness of the accident. In the mean
time one knocks at my door, Betty runs down, and opening, finds a
sober grave person, who modestly enquires if this was Dr.
Partridge's? She taking him for some cautious city-patient, that
came at that time for privacy, shews him into the dining room. As
soon as I could compose myself, I went to him, and was surprized
to find my gentleman mounted on a table with a two-foot rule in
his hand, measuring my walls, and taking the dimensions of the
room. Pray sir, says I, not to interrupt you, have you any
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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 The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle: they came to the banks of a wide, glassy, and lily-padded stream.
Here a broad, beaten path stretched along beside the banks, on which path
labored the horses that tugged at the slow-moving barges, laden with
barley meal or what not, from the countryside to the many-towered town.
But now, in the hot silence of the midday, no horse was seen nor
any man besides themselves. Behind them and before them stretched
the river, its placid bosom ruffled here and there by the purple dusk
of a small breeze.
"Now, good uncle," quoth Will Scarlet at last, when they
had walked for a long time beside this sweet, bright river,
"just beyond yon bend ahead of us is a shallow ford which in no
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood |
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 Agesilaus by Xenophon: content, and returned home.
[26] Or intimates.
[27] B.C. 370. See "Hell."VI. v. 21.
After this Lacedaemon was invaded by the united Arcadians, Argives,
Eleians, and Boeotians, who were assisted by the Phocians, both
sections of the Locrians, the Thessalians, Aenianians, Acarnanians,
and Euboeans; moreover, the slaves had revolted and several of the
provincial cities;[28] while of the Spartans themselves as many had
fallen on the field of Leuctra as survived. But in spite of all, he
safely guarded the city, and that too a city without walls and
bulwarks. Forbearing to engage in the open field, where the gain would
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