| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: of any weight. The analogy which I will adduce is that of an old weaver,
who dies, and after his death somebody says:--He is not dead, he must be
alive;--see, there is the coat which he himself wove and wore, and which
remains whole and undecayed. And then he proceeds to ask of some one who
is incredulous, whether a man lasts longer, or the coat which is in use and
wear; and when he is answered that a man lasts far longer, thinks that he
has thus certainly demonstrated the survival of the man, who is the more
lasting, because the less lasting remains. But that, Simmias, as I would
beg you to remark, is a mistake; any one can see that he who talks thus is
talking nonsense. For the truth is, that the weaver aforesaid, having
woven and worn many such coats, outlived several of them, and was outlived
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: shells, &c., and at the dissimilarity of the surrounding terrestrial
beings, compared with those of Britain.
But this power in fresh-water productions of ranging widely, though so
unexpected, can, I think, in most cases be explained by their having become
fitted, in a manner highly useful to them, for short and frequent
migrations from pond to pond, or from stream to stream; and liability to
wide dispersal would follow from this capacity as an almost necessary
consequence. We can here consider only a few cases. In regard to fish, I
believe that the same species never occur in the fresh waters of distant
continents. But on the same continent the species often range widely and
almost capriciously; for two river-systems will have some fish in common
On the Origin of Species |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles: JOCASTA
Then thou mayest ease thy conscience on that score.
Listen and I'll convince thee that no man
Hath scot or lot in the prophetic art.
Here is the proof in brief. An oracle
Once came to Laius (I will not say
'Twas from the Delphic god himself, but from
His ministers) declaring he was doomed
To perish by the hand of his own son,
A child that should be born to him by me.
Now Laius--so at least report affirmed--
Oedipus Trilogy |
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 Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: to be guilty until he has proved that he is innocent.
Minora has seen so much of the babies that, after vainly
trying to get out of their way for several days, she thought it
better to resign herself, and make the best of it by regarding
them as copy, and using them to fill a chapter in her book.
So she took to dogging their footsteps wherever they went,
attended their uprisings and their lyings down, engaged them,
if she could, in intelligent conversation, went with them
into the garden to study their ways when they were sleighing,
drawn by a big dog, and generally made their lives a burden to them.
This went on for three days, and then she settled down to write
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
