| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: already, can tell me, who am always longing to find one, what is the secret
of this great blessing.'
When one man loves another, which is the friend--he who loves, or he who is
loved? Or are both friends? From the first of these suppositions they are
driven to the second; and from the second to the third; and neither the two
boys nor Socrates are satisfied with any of the three or with all of them.
Socrates turns to the poets, who affirm that God brings like to like
(Homer), and to philosophers (Empedocles), who also assert that like is the
friend of like. But the bad are not friends, for they are not even like
themselves, and still less are they like one another. And the good have no
need of one another, and therefore do not care about one another. Moreover
Lysis |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Anthem by Ayn Rand: humans to know, choked our voice in our throat.
"You fools!" we cried. "You fools! You thrice-damned fools!"
We swung our fist through the windowpane,
and we leapt out in a ringing rain of glass.
We fell, but we never let the box fall
from our hands. Then we ran. We ran
blindly, and men and houses streaked past
us in a torrent without shape. And the road
seemed not to be flat before us, but as if
it were leaping up to meet us, and we waited
for the earth to rise and strike us in the
Anthem |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: Of discontent and rapture and despair?
So, as in darkness, from the magic lamp,
The momentary pictures gleam and fade
And perish, and the night resurges - these
Shall I remember, and then all forget.
Apemama.
XXXV
THE tropics vanish, and meseems that I,
From Halkerside, from topmost Allermuir,
Or steep Caerketton, dreaming gaze again.
Far set in fields and woods, the town I see
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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 Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: during which time her jealousy had never once been roused, was
apparently and suddenly nothing in the heart where she had lately
reigned. Spanish by race, the feelings of a Spanish woman rose within
her when she discovered her rival in a Science that allured her
husband from her: torments of jealousy preyed upon her heart and
renewed her love. What could she do against Science? Should she combat
that tyrannous, unyielding, growing power? Could she kill an invisible
rival? Could a woman, limited by nature, contend with an Idea whose
delights are infinite, whose attractions are ever new? How make head
against the fascination of ideas that spring the fresher and the
lovelier out of difficulty, and entice a man so far from this world
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