| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Enchanted Island of Yew by L. Frank Baum: "Willingly," she answered; and calling Berna and Helda to attend them,
they mounted their horses and rode swiftly away, for it was a long
distance to Lurla.
By noon the party entered the forest, and although the path they
traversed was unknown to the girls, who had usually entered the forest
from its other side, near to where the Baron Merd's castle had stood,
the prince seemed to have no difficulty in finding his way.
He guided them carefully along the paths, his handsome war-charger stepping
with much grace and dignity, until at length they came to a clearing.
Here the prince paused abruptly, and Seseley looked around her and at
once recognized the place.
The Enchanted Island of Yew |
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: to grant whatever he may request? There is the story of Oedipus, for
instance, who prayed that his children might divide their inheritance
between them by the sword: he did not, as he might have done, beg that his
present evils might be averted, but called down new ones. And was not his
prayer accomplished, and did not many and terrible evils thence arise, upon
which I need not dilate?
ALCIBIADES: Yes, Socrates, but you are speaking of a madman: surely you
do not think that any one in his senses would venture to make such a
prayer?
SOCRATES: Madness, then, you consider to be the opposite of discretion?
ALCIBIADES: Of course.
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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 Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake: In trembling zeal he seized his hair,
He led him by his little coat,
And all admired his priestly care.
And standing on the altar high,
'Lo, what a fiend is here!' said he:
'One who sets reason up for judge
Of our most holy mystery.'
The weeping child could not be heard,
The weeping parents wept in vain:
They stripped him to his little shirt,
And bound him in an iron chain,
Songs of Innocence and Experience |
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 Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: their wives at home, it was unlikely that the Locrians should not
have had the same privilege; and next, that the Italian Locrians
knew nothing of the Aristotelian version and had, on the contrary,
very severe laws against adulterers, runaway slaves and the like.
Now, most of these questions rest on mere probability, which is
always such a subjective canon that an appeal to it is rarely
conclusive. I would note, however, as regards the inscriptions
which, if genuine, would of course have settled the matter, that
Polybius looks on them as a mere invention on the part of Timaeus,
who, he remarks, gives no details about them, though, as a rule, he
is over-anxious to give chapter and verse for everything. A
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