| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: development, and showing no traces of a kinship which never
existed.
The bearing of these considerations upon the origin and
diffusion of barbaric myths is obvious. The development of a
common stock of legends is, of course, impossible, save where
there is a common language; and thus philology pronounces
against the kinship of barbaric myths with each other and with
similar myths of the Aryan and Semitic worlds. Similar stories
told in Greece and Norway are likely to have a common
pedigree, because the persons who have preserved them in
recollection speak a common language and have inherited the
Myths and Myth-Makers |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: stations and ornaments to their country.
When I disengaged myself, as above mentioned, from private business,
I flatter'd myself that, by the sufficient tho' moderate fortune
I had acquir'd, I had secured leisure during the rest of my life
for philosophical studies and amusements. I purchased all
Dr. Spence's apparatus, who had come from England to lecture here,
and I proceeded in my electrical experiments with great alacrity;
but the publick, now considering me as a man of leisure, laid hold
of me for their purposes, every part of our civil government,
and almost at the same time, imposing some duty upon me.
The governor put me into the commission of the peace; the corporation
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: On the other hand, if we utterly fail, I suppose that we must be humble,
and allow the argument to trample us under foot, as the sea-sick passenger
is trampled upon by the sailor, and to do anything to us. Listen, then,
while I tell you how I hope to find a way out of our difficulty.
THEAETETUS: Let me hear.
SOCRATES: I think that we were wrong in denying that a man could think
what he knew to be what he did not know; and that there is a way in which
such a deception is possible.
THEAETETUS: You mean to say, as I suspected at the time, that I may know
Socrates, and at a distance see some one who is unknown to me, and whom I
mistake for him--then the deception will occur?
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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 Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: on it was blown about in the wind. She suddenly stopped short,
and like a genuine rebel, fell to beating her breast with her
fists and shouting louder than ever in a sing-song voice, as
though she were sobbing:
"Good Christians and believers in God! Neighbours, they have
ill-treated me! Kind friends, they have oppressed me! Oh, oh!
dear people, take my part."
"Granny, Granny!" said the village elder sternly, "have some
sense in your head!"
It was hopelessly dreary in the Tchikildyeevs' hut without the
samovar; there was something humiliating in this loss, insulting,
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