| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Sportsman by Xenophon: and bodies the sweat of toil has washed all base and wanton thoughts,
who have implanted in them a passion for manly virtue--these, I say,
are the true nobles.[15] Not theirs will it be to allow their city or
its sacred soil to suffer wrong.
[9] Al. "looked upon the chase as a pursuit incumbent on the young."
[10] {me koluein [dia] to meden ton epi te ge phuomenon agreuein}. The
commentators generally omit {dia}, in which case translate as in
text. Lenz reads {un koluein dia meden} (see his note ad v. 34),
and translates (p. 61), "Dass man die Jager nicht hindern solle,
in allem was die Erde hervorbrachte zu jagen," "not to hinder the
huntsmen from ranging over any of the crops which spring from
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: I was only glad to be quit of the foulness of the Beast People.
And on the third day I was picked up by a brig from Apia to San Francisco.
Neither the captain nor the mate would believe my story, judging that
solitude and danger had made me mad; and fearing their opinion might
be that of others, I refrained from telling my adventure further,
and professed to recall nothing that had happened to me between
the loss of the "Lady Vain" and the time when I was picked up again,--
the space of a year.
I had to act with the utmost circumspection to save myself from the
suspicion of insanity. My memory of the Law, of the two dead sailors,
of the ambuscades of the darkness, of the body in the canebrake,
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Caesar's Commentaries in Latin by Julius Caesar: Ariovistus respondit: si quid ipsi a Caesare opus esset, sese ad eum
venturum fuisse; si quid ille se velit, illum ad se venire oportere.
Praeterea se neque sine exercitu in eas partes Galliae venire audere quas
Caesar possideret, neque exercitum sine magno commeatu atque molimento in
unum locum contrahere posse. Sibi autem mirum videri quid in sua Gallia,
quam bello vicisset, aut Caesari aut omnino populo Romano negotii esset.
His responsis ad Caesarem relatis, iterum ad eum Caesar legatos cum
his mandatis mittit: quoniam tanto suo populique Romani beneficio
adtectus, cum in consulatu suo rex atque amicus a senatu appellatus esset,
hanc sibi populoque Romano gratiam referret ut in conloquium venire
invitatus gravaretur neque de communi re dicendum sibi et cognoscendum
|
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 A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: all this while, even so long as till there died above 3000 a week, yet
had the people in Redriff, and in Wapping and Ratcliff, on both sides
of the river, and almost all Southwark side, a mighty fancy that they
should not be visited, or at least that it would not be so violent among
them. Some people fancied the smell of the pitch and tar, and such
other things as oil and rosin and brimstone, which is so much used by
all trades relating to shipping, would preserve them. Others argued it,
because it was in its extreamest violence in Westminster and the
parish of St Giles and St Andrew, &c., and began to abate again
before it came among them - which was true indeed, in part. For
example -
A Journal of the Plague Year |
