| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: on one side (for it could not stand upright without going through
the ceiling), gave an additional twist to his corkscrew mustaches,
and replied with perfect coolness: "Gentlemen, I wish you a very
good morning. At twelve o'clock tonight I'll call again; after
such a refusal of hospitality as I have just experienced, you will
not be surprised if that visit is the last I ever pay you."
"If ever I catch you here again," muttered Schwartz,
coming, half frightened, out of the corner--but before he could
finish his sentence the old gentleman had shut the house door
behind him with a great bang, and there drove past the window at
the same instant a wreath of ragged cloud that whirled and rolled
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: sympathy, are exercises of this spiritual endowment. The whole
intellectual discipline of the Greeks, with their philosophy, came down
from God to men. Philosophy, he concludes in one place, carries on "an
inquiry concerning Truth and the nature of Being; and this Truth is that
concerning which the Lord Himself said: 'I am the Truth.' And when the
initiated find, or rather receive, the true philosophy, they have it
from the Truth itself; that is from Him who is true."
While, then, these two schools had so many grounds in common, where was
their point of divergence? We shall find it, I believe, fairly
expressed in the dying words of Plotinus, the great father of
Neoplatonism. "I am striving to bring the God which is in us into
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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 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: afflicting to him at first as the disappointment he was under when
he came back to the island and found I was not there.
As to the three barbarians (so he called them) that were left
behind, and of whom, he said, he had a long story to tell me, the
Spaniards all thought themselves much better among the savages,
only that their number was so small: "And," says he, "had they
been strong enough, we had been all long ago in purgatory;" and
with that he crossed himself on the breast. "But, sir," says he,
"I hope you will not be displeased when I shall tell you how,
forced by necessity, we were obliged for our own preservation to
disarm them, and make them our subjects, as they would not be
Robinson Crusoe |
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 Sportsman by Xenophon: [1] For these breeds see Pollux, v. 37: for the Laconian, Pind. "Fr."
73; Soph. "Aj." 8; cf. Shakesp. "Mids. N. D." iv. 1. 119, 129
foll.
To begin with, the hounds must be no ordinary specimens of the species
named,[2] in order to do battle with the beast in question.
[2] Or, "these hounds of the breed named must not be any ordinary
specimens"; but what does Xenophon mean by {ek toutou tou genous}?
The nets should be made of the same flaxen cord[3] as those for hares
above described. They should be forty-five threaded in three strands,
each strand consisting of fifteen threads. The height from the upper
rim[4] (i.e. from top to bottom) should be ten meshes, and the depth
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