| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Octopus by Frank Norris: "Oh, quit it!" cried a voice from the group. "You can't scare
us, Derrick. That sort of talk was well enough once, but it
don't go any more. We want a yes or no answer."
It was gone--that old-time power of mastery, that faculty of
command. The ground crumbled beneath his feet. Long since it
had been, by his own hand, undermined. Authority was gone. Why
keep up this miserable sham any longer? Could they not read the
lie in his face, in his voice? What a folly to maintain the
wretched pretence! He had failed. He was ruined. Harran was
gone. His ranch would soon go; his money was gone. Lyman was
worse than dead. His own honour had been prostituted. Gone,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: His brain, greedy, dwarfed, full of thwarted energy and unused
powers, questioned these men and women going by, coldly,
bitterly, that night. Was it not his right to live as they,--a
pure life, a good, true-hearted life, full of beauty and kind
words? He only wanted to know how to use the strength within
him. His heart warmed, as he thought of it. He suffered
himself to think of it longer. If he took the money?
Then he saw himself as he might be, strong, helpful, kindly.
The night crept on, as this one image slowly evolved itself from
the crowd of other thoughts and stood triumphant. He looked at
it. As he might be! What wonder, if it blinded him to
Life in the Iron-Mills |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: spending all his clothes on drink he became turbulent and
quarrelsome. Vasili Andreevich himself had turned him away
several times, but had afterwards taken him back again--valuing
his honesty, his kindness to animals, and especially his
cheapness. Vasili Andreevich did not pay Nikita the eighty
rubles a year such a man was worth, but only about forty, which
he gave him haphazard, in small sums, and even that mostly not
in cash but in goods from his own shop and at high prices.
Nikita's wife Martha, who had once been a handsome vigorous
woman, managed the homestead with the help of her son and two
daughters, and did not urge Nikita to live at home: first
Master and Man |
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 Parmenides by Plato: the relations of either are limited to their respective spheres.
Yes, that has been admitted.
And if God has this perfect authority, and perfect knowledge, his authority
cannot rule us, nor his knowledge know us, or any human thing; just as our
authority does not extend to the gods, nor our knowledge know anything
which is divine, so by parity of reason they, being gods, are not our
masters, neither do they know the things of men.
Yet, surely, said Socrates, to deprive God of knowledge is monstrous.
These, Socrates, said Parmenides, are a few, and only a few of the
difficulties in which we are involved if ideas really are and we determine
each one of them to be an absolute unity. He who hears what may be said
|
