| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lesson of the Master by Henry James: to the pictures. The gallery was so long that this transit took
some little time, especially as there was a moment when he stopped
to admire the fine Gainsborough. "He says Mrs. St. George has been
the making of him," the girl continued in a voice slightly lowered.
"Ah he's often obscure!" Paul laughed.
"Obscure?" she repeated as if she heard it for the first time. Her
eyes rested on her other friend, and it wasn't lost upon Paul that
they appeared to send out great shafts of softness. "He's going to
speak to us!" she fondly breathed. There was a sort of rapture in
her voice, and our friend was startled. "Bless my soul, does she
care for him like THAT? - is she in love with him?" he mentally
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Poems of Goethe, Bowring, Tr. by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Yet all will love-sick be ere long
To sound of magic lute and song.
[Da Capo.] 1803.*
-----
THE SPINNER.
As I calmly sat and span,
Toiling with all zeal,
Lo! a young and handsome man
Pass'd my spinning-wheel.
And he praised,--what harm was there?--
Sweet the things he said--
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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 Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: phantom, a mere projection of the human brain, attributing reality to
mere conceptions and names, and confusing the subject with the object,
as logicians say truly the Neoplatonists did, then in despair, the
school will try to make the spiritual something real, or, at least,
something conceivable, by reinvesting it with the properties of matter,
and talking of it as if it were some manner of gas, or heat, or
electricity, or force, pervading time and space, conditioned by the
accidents of brute matter, and a part of that nature which is born to
die.
The culmination of all this confusion we see in Proclus. The
unfortunate Hypatia, who is the most important personage between him and
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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 The Enchanted Island of Yew by L. Frank Baum: "That is a good suggestion," replied the prince. "Good by, my
friends," he added, addressing the men.
They both bowed, and although they still seemed somewhat frightened
they answered him civilly and in the same words, and closed their
doors at the same time.
So Prince Marvel and Nerle rode up the double path to the hills, and
the two cows became frightened and ran away with the same swinging
step, keeping an exact space apart. And when they were a safe
distance they both stopped, looked over their right shoulders, and
"mooed" at the same instant.
14. The Ki and the Ki-Ki
The Enchanted Island of Yew |
