| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: were at supper. My landlady's daughter I called my bridesmaid;
and sending for a shopkeeper the next morning, I gave the young
woman a good suit of knots, as good as the town would afford,
and finding it was a lace-making town, I gave her mother a
piece of bone-lace for a head.
One reason that my landlord was so close was, that he was
unwilling the minister of the parish should hear of it; but for
all that somebody heard of it, so at that we had the bells set
a-ringing the next morning early, and the music, such as the
town would afford, under our window; but my landlord
brazened it out, that we were married before we came thither,
Moll Flanders |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: ticket of admission to the Institution for Idiots and Feeble-minded
Youth? One doesn't like to be cruel, - and yet one hates to lie.
Therefore one softens down the ugly central fact of donkeyism, -
recommends study of good models, - that writing verse should be an
incidental occupation only, not interfering with the hoe, the
needle, the lapstone, or the ledger, - and, above all that there
should be no hurry in printing what is written. Not the least use
in all this. The poetaster who has tasted type is done for. He is
like the man who has once been a candidate for the Presidency. He
feeds on the madder of his delusion all his days, and his very
bones grow red with the glow of his foolish fancy. One of these
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: far from certain, that the slighter effort preceded the greater one. (ii)
Their eristic, or rather Socratic character; they belong to the class
called dialogues of search (Greek), which have no conclusion. (iii) The
absence in them of certain favourite notions of Plato, such as the doctrine
of recollection and of the Platonic ideas; the questions, whether virtue
can be taught; whether the virtues are one or many. (iv) They have a want
of depth, when compared with the dialogues of the middle and later period;
and a youthful beauty and grace which is wanting in the later ones. (v)
Their resemblance to one another; in all the three boyhood has a great
part. These reasons have various degrees of weight in determining their
place in the catalogue of the Platonic writings, though they are not
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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 Critias by Plato: will soon be revealed to you; meanwhile I accept your exhortations and
encouragements. But besides the gods and goddesses whom you have
mentioned, I would specially invoke Mnemosyne; for all the important part
of my discourse is dependent on her favour, and if I can recollect and
recite enough of what was said by the priests and brought hither by Solon,
I doubt not that I shall satisfy the requirements of this theatre. And
now, making no more excuses, I will proceed.
Let me begin by observing first of all, that nine thousand was the sum of
years which had elapsed since the war which was said to have taken place
between those who dwelt outside the pillars of Heracles and all who dwelt
within them; this war I am going to describe. Of the combatants on the one
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