| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Apology by Xenophon: alike in the glance of his eye, his gesture, and his step.
[50] {omologoumenos}. For the use of the word L. Dind. cf. Diog.
Laert. vii. 87, {dioper protos o Zenon en to peri anthropou
phuseos telos eipe to omologoumenos te phusei zen} (Cicero's
"naturae convenienter vivere," L. and S.), whereas the regular
Attic use is different. Cf. "Oec." i. 11, {kai omologoumenos ge o
logos emin khorei} = "consentanea ratione." "Our argument runs on
all-fours." Plat. "Symp." 186 B, {to nasoun omologoumenos eteron
te kai anomoion esti}, "ut inter omnes convenit."
And when he perceived those who followed by his side in tears, "What
is this?" he asked. "Why do you weep now?[51] Do you not know that for
The Apology |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: when a person went to confession.
And when it happened that any one said that he could not have
contrition nor lament his sins (as might have occurred in
illicit love or the desire for revenge, etc.), they asked
whether he did not wish or desire to have contrition [lament].
When one would reply Yes (for who, save the devil himself,
would here say No?), they accepted this as contrition, and
forgave him his sins on account of this good work of his
[which they adorned with the name of contrition]. Here they
cited the example of St. Bernard, etc.
Here we see how blind reason, in matters pertaining to God,
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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 Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: own part, she had tried in vain; but good-nature was her fault.'
"I shudder with horror, when I recollect the treatment I had
now to endure. Not only under the lash of my task-mistress, but
the drudge of the maid, apprentices and children, I never had a
taste of human kindness to soften the rigour of perpetual labour.
I had been introduced as an object of abhorrence into the family;
as a creature of whom my step-mother, though she had been kind
enough to let me live in the house with her own child, could make
nothing. I was described as a wretch, whose nose must be kept to
the grinding stone--and it was held there with an iron grasp. It
seemed indeed the privilege of their superior nature to kick 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 Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: six-and-twenty; in the Faubourg Saint-Germain he found the
luxurious equipage of a man of rank; thirty thousand francs would
not have purchased it.
"Who can be here?" said Eugene to himself. He began to
understand, though somewhat tardily, that he must not expect to
find many women in Paris who were not already appropriated, and
that the capture of one of these queens would be likely to cost
something more than bloodshed. "Confound it all! I expect my
cousin also has her Maxime."
He went up the steps, feeling that he was a blighted being. The
glass door was opened for him; the servants were as solemn as
Father Goriot |
