| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Aeneid by Virgil: The king ordains their entrance, and ascends
His regal seat, surrounded by his friends.
The palace built by Picus, vast and proud,
Supported by a hundred pillars stood,
And round incompass'd with a rising wood.
The pile o'erlook'd the town, and drew the sight;
Surpris'd at once with reverence and delight.
There kings receiv'd the marks of sov'reign pow'r;
In state the monarchs march'd; the lictors bore
Their awful axes and the rods before.
Here the tribunal stood, the house of pray'r,
Aeneid |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: it to himself as far as he can, it does indeed require an almost superhuman
wisdom to discover what the poet would be at. You surely do not suppose
that Homer, the wisest and most divine of poets, was unaware of the
impossibility of knowing a thing badly: for it was no less a person than
he who said of Margites that 'he knew many things, but knew them all
badly.' The solution of the riddle is this, I imagine:--By 'badly' Homer
meant 'bad' and 'knew' stands for 'to know.' Put the words together;--the
metre will suffer, but the poet's meaning is clear;--'Margites knew all
these things, but it was bad for him to know them.' And, obviously, if it
was bad for him to know so many things, he must have been a good-for-
nothing, unless the argument has played us false.
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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 Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: Death. "She'll win it," he muttered;--"she'll stand it ...
Perhaps they'll have need of me to-night."
She won! With a sonorous steam-chant of triumph the brave little
vessel rode at last into the bayou, and anchored hard by her
accustomed resting-place, in full view of the hotel, though not
near enough to shore to lower her gang-plank.... But she had sung
her swan-song. Gathering in from the northeast, the waters of
the bay were already marbling over the salines and half across
the island; and still the wind increased its paroxysmal power.
Cottages began to rock. Some slid away from the solid props upon
which they rested. A chimney fumbled. Shutters were wrenched
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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 A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: putting them away again. The sun fell on the piteous things,
disclosing their spots and the creases formed by the motions of the
body. The atmosphere was warm and blue, and a blackbird trilled in the
garden; everything seemed to live in happiness. They found a little
hat of soft brown plush, but it was entirely moth-eaten. Felicite
asked for it. Their eyes met and filled with tears; at last the
mistress opened her arms and the servant threw herself against her
breast and they hugged each other and giving vent to their grief in a
kiss which equalised them for a moment.
It was the first time that this had ever happened, for Madame Aubain
was not of an expansive nature. Felicite was as grateful for it as if
A Simple Soul |
