| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: Another long silence.
"Jane!" recommenced he, with a gentleness that broke me down with
grief, and turned me stone-cold with ominous terror--for this still
voice was the pant of a lion rising--"Jane, do you mean to go one
way in the world, and to let me go another?"
"I do."
"Jane" (bending towards and embracing me), "do you mean it now?"
"I do."
"And now?" softly kissing my forehead and cheek.
"I do," extricating myself from restraint rapidly and completely.
"Oh, Jane, this is bitter! This--this is wicked. It would not be
Jane Eyre |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Anabasis by Xenophon: Master of Balliol College
Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford
Xenophon the Athenian was born 431 B.C. He was a
pupil of Socrates. He marched with the Spartans,
and was exiled from Athens. Sparta gave him land
and property in Scillus, where he lived for many
years before having to move once more, to settle
in Corinth. He died in 354 B.C.
The Anabasis is his story of the march to Persia
to aid Cyrus, who enlisted Greek help to try and
take the throne from Artaxerxes, and the ensuing
Anabasis |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: and so forth; which was still sung, with other "rimur," or ballads,
in the Faroes, at the end of the last century. Professor Rafn has
inserted it, because it talks of Vinland as a well-known place, and
because the brothers are sent by the princess to slay American
kings; but that Rime has another value. It is of a beauty so
perfect, and yet so like the old Scotch ballads in its heroic
conception of love, and in all its forms and its qualities, that it
is one proof more, to any student of early European poetry, that we
and these old Norsemen are men of the same blood.
If anything more important than is told by Professor Rafn and Mr.
Black {2} be now known to the antiquarians of Massachusetts, let me
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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 Euthyphro by Plato: being loved by all the gods. But you still refuse to explain to me the
nature of holiness. And therefore, if you please, I will ask you not to
hide your treasure, but to tell me once more what holiness or piety really
is, whether dear to the gods or not (for that is a matter about which we
will not quarrel); and what is impiety?
EUTHYPHRO: I really do not know, Socrates, how to express what I mean.
For somehow or other our arguments, on whatever ground we rest them, seem
to turn round and walk away from us.
SOCRATES: Your words, Euthyphro, are like the handiwork of my ancestor
Daedalus; and if I were the sayer or propounder of them, you might say that
my arguments walk away and will not remain fixed where they are placed
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