| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: thing I love, and that is truth; and for one thing will I give my
daughter, and that is the trial stone. For in the light of that
stone the seeming goes, and the being shows, and all things besides
are worthless. Therefore, lads, if ye would wed my daughter, out
foot, and bring me the stone of touch, for that is the price of
her."
"A word in your ear," said the younger son to his father. "I think
we do very well without this stone."
"A word in yours," said the father. "I am of your way of thinking;
but when the teeth are shut the tongue is at home." And he smiled
to the King that was a priest.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Poems by T. S. Eliot: Overturns a coffee-cup,
Reorganized upon the floor
She yawns and draws a stocking up;
The silent man in mocha brown
Sprawls at the window-sill and gapes;
The waiter brings in oranges
Bananas figs and hothouse grapes;
The silent vertebrate in brown
Contracts and concentrates, withdraws;
Rachel née Rabinovitch
Tears at the grapes with murderous paws;
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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 Charmides by Plato: found in them many plagiarisms, inappropriately borrowed, which is a common
note of forgery. They imitate Plato, who never imitates either himself or
any one else; reminiscences of the Republic and the Laws are continually
recurring in them; they are too like him and also too unlike him, to be
genuine (see especially Karsten, Commentio Critica de Platonis quae
feruntur Epistolis). They are full of egotism, self-assertion,
affectation, faults which of all writers Plato was most careful to avoid,
and into which he was least likely to fall. They abound in obscurities,
irrelevancies, solecisms, pleonasms, inconsistencies, awkwardnesses of
construction, wrong uses of words. They also contain historical blunders,
such as the statement respecting Hipparinus and Nysaeus, the nephews of
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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 Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: within a few feet of my head, and stood, waved her tail, and fixed me
with her glowing yellow eyes; but just as I thought that it was all over
she turned and began to feed on Kaptein, and so did the cubs. There
were the four of them within eight feet of me, growling and quarrelling,
rending and tearing, and crunching poor Kaptein's bones; and there I lay
shaking with terror, and the cold perspiration pouring out of me,
feeling like another Daniel come to judgment in a new sense of the
phrase. Presently the cubs had eaten their fill, and began to get
restless. One went round to the back of the waggon and pulled at the
Impala buck that hung there, and the other came round my way and
commenced the sniffing game at my leg. Indeed, he did more than that,
Long Odds |
