| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: could easily point out two Athenian houses, whose union would be likely to
produce a better or nobler scion than the two from which you are sprung.
There is your father's house, which is descended from Critias the son of
Dropidas, whose family has been commemorated in the panegyrical verses of
Anacreon, Solon, and many other poets, as famous for beauty and virtue and
all other high fortune: and your mother's house is equally distinguished;
for your maternal uncle, Pyrilampes, is reputed never to have found his
equal, in Persia at the court of the great king, or on the continent of
Asia, in all the places to which he went as ambassador, for stature and
beauty; that whole family is not a whit inferior to the other. Having such
ancestors you ought to be first in all things, and, sweet son of Glaucon,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton: Allegiance to the acknowledged Power supreme?
And thou, sly hypocrite, who now wouldst seem
Patron of liberty, who more than thou
Once fawned, and cringed, and servily adored
Heaven's awful Monarch? wherefore, but in hope
To dispossess him, and thyself to reign?
But mark what I arreed thee now, Avant;
Fly neither whence thou fledst! If from this hour
Within these hallowed limits thou appear,
Back to the infernal pit I drag thee chained,
And seal thee so, as henceforth not to scorn
Paradise Lost |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: We shall need all our strength for the job!"
Fit the Fifth
THE BEAVER'S LESSON
They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway-share;
They charmed it with smiles and soap.
Then the Butcher contrived an ingenious plan
For making a separate sally;
And fixed on a spot unfrequented by man,
A dismal and desolate valley.
The Hunting of the Snark |
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 In the Cage by Henry James: which the conditions happened to present it was almost rich enough
to be but the positive creation of a dream. She saw, straight
before her, like a vista painted in a picture, the empty street and
the lamps that burned pale in the dusk not yet established. It was
into the convenience of this quiet twilight that a gentleman on the
doorstep of the Chambers gazed with a vagueness that our young
lady's little figure violently trembled, in the approach, with the
measure of its power to dissipate. Everything indeed grew in a
flash terrific and distinct; her old uncertainties fell away from
her, and, since she was so familiar with fate, she felt as if the
very nail that fixed it were driven in by the hard look with which,
|
