| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: lowest step of his highness's throne. He understood the language
of Balnibarbi, although it was different from that of this
island. He desired me to give him some account of my travels;
and, to let me see that I should be treated without ceremony, he
dismissed all his attendants with a turn of his finger; at which,
to my great astonishment, they vanished in an instant, like
visions in a dream when we awake on a sudden. I could not
recover myself in some time, till the governor assured me, "that
I should receive no hurt:" and observing my two companions to be
under no concern, who had been often entertained in the same
manner, I began to take courage, and related to his highness a
Gulliver's Travels |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton: dazzled, his mind distracted, full to the brim. To
sit at table with the Tsar, to talk with him alone in
his cabinet, to have for the asking audience of the
Pope of Rome and the King of Spain! Ay yi! Ay
yi! Perhaps he will be made a prince when he re-
turns to St. Petersburg and all the beautiful prin-
cesses will want to marry him. Can he remember
this poor little California, and even our lovely Con-
cha? I doubt! Valgame Dios, I doubt!"
"Concha has always been too fortunate," said
Rafaella with a touch of spite, for years of waiting
Rezanov |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne: steady.
"He sees something," says my uncle.
"I believe he does."
Hans comes down, then stretches his arm to the south, saying:
"_Dere nere!_"
"Down there?" repeated my uncle.
Then, seizing his glass, he gazes attentively for a minute, which
seems to me an age.
"Yes, yes!" he cried. "I see a vast inverted cone rising from the
surface."
"Is it another sea beast?"
Journey to the Center of the Earth |
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 Statesman by Plato: myth in the sense in which the term might be applied to the myth of the
Phaedrus, the Republic, the Phaedo, or the Gorgias, but may be more aptly
compared with the didactic tale in which Protagoras describes the fortunes
of primitive man, or with the description of the gradual rise of a new
society in the Third Book of the Laws. Some discrepancies may be observed
between the mythology of the Statesman and the Timaeus, and between the
Timaeus and the Republic. But there is no reason to expect that all
Plato's visions of a former, any more than of a future, state of existence,
should conform exactly to the same pattern. We do not find perfect
consistency in his philosophy; and still less have we any right to demand
this of him in his use of mythology and figures of speech. And we observe
Statesman |
