| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: transgression.
"Also we have witness, as weel in holy writt as in profane
history, of the honour in quhilk husbandrie was held of old, and
how prophets have been taken from the pleugh, and great captains
raised up to defend their ain countries, sic as Cincinnatus, and
the like, who fought not the common enemy with the less valiancy
that their alms had been exercised in halding the stilts of the
pleugh, and their bellicose skill in driving of yauds and owsen.
"Likewise there are sindry honorable families, quhilk are now of
our native Scottish nobility, and have clombe higher up the brae
of preferment than what this house of Croftangry hath done,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: Prickly pine branches were continually hitting the student on his
cap and a spider's web settled on his face. Wheels and hoofs
knocked against huge roots, and the mail cart swayed from side to
side as though it were drunk.
"Keep to the road," said the postman angrily. "Why do you run up
the edge? My face is scratched all over by the twigs! Keep more
to the right!"
But at that point there was nearly an accident. The cart suddenly
bounded as though in the throes of a convulsion, began trembling,
and, with a creak, lurched heavily first to the right and then to
the left, and at a fearful pace dashed along the forest track.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon: [5] Or, "absorbed our souls in song and festal cheer and dance." Cf.
"Od." viii. 248, 249, {aiei d' emin dais te phile kitharis te
khoroi te} | {eimata t' exemoiba loetra te therma kau eunai}, "and
dear to us ever is the banquet and the harp and the dance, and
changes of raiment, and the warm bath, and love and sleep"
(Butcher and Lang).
[6] Reading as vulg. {epithumias}. Breit. cf. "Mem." III. ix. 7; Plat.
"Phaed." 116 E, "he has eaten and drunk and enjoyed the society of
his beloved" (Jowett). See "Symp." the finale; or if, after Weiske
and Cobet, {euthumias}, transl. "to the general hilarity of myself
and the whole company" (cf. "Cyrop." I. iii. 12, IV. v. 7), but
|
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 Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: his imagination pictured the garden-paths, flowers and fruit,
starling cotes, the carp in the pond, and all that sort of thing,
you know. These imaginary pictures were of different kinds
according to the advertisements which he came across, but for
some reason in every one of them he had always to have
gooseberries. He could not imagine a homestead, he could not
picture an idyllic nook, without gooseberries.
" 'Country life has its conveniences,' he would sometimes say.
'You sit on the verandah and you drink tea, while your ducks swim
on the pond, there is a delicious smell everywhere, and . . . and
the gooseberries are growing.'
|
