| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: he was to wear, the food which he was to eat, were all prescribed by law.
Some of the best enactments in the Republic, such as the reverence to be
paid to parents and elders, and some of the worst, such as the exposure of
deformed children, are borrowed from the practice of Sparta. The
encouragement of friendships between men and youths, or of men with one
another, as affording incentives to bravery, is also Spartan; in Sparta too
a nearer approach was made than in any other Greek State to equality of the
sexes, and to community of property; and while there was probably less of
licentiousness in the sense of immorality, the tie of marriage was regarded
more lightly than in the rest of Greece. The 'suprema lex' was the
preservation of the family, and the interest of the State. The coarse
The Republic |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from In the Cage by Henry James: sometimes Everard, as he had been at the Hotel Brighton, and he was
sometimes Captain Everard. He was sometimes Philip with his
surname and sometimes Philip without it. In some directions he was
merely Phil, in others he was merely Captain. There were relations
in which he was none of these things, but a quite different person-
-"the Count." There were several friends for whom he was William.
There were several for whom, in allusion perhaps to his complexion,
he was "the Pink 'Un." Once, once only by good luck, he had,
coinciding comically, quite miraculously, with another person also
near to her, been "Mudge." Yes, whatever he was, it was a part of
his happiness--whatever he was and probably whatever he wasn't.
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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 Poems by Bronte Sisters: Then for my ultimate reward--
Then for the world-rejoicing word--
The voice from Father--Spirit--Son:
"Servant of God, well hast thou done!"
*
POEMS BY ELLIS BELL,
FAITH AND DESPONDENCY.
"The winter wind is loud and wild,
Come close to me, my darling child;
Forsake thy books, and mateless play;
And, while the night is gathering gray,
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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 Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: town, as he would have said, a wide berth, and cut through a great
fenced pasture, emerging, when he rolled under the barbed wire at
the farther corner, upon a white dusty road which ran straight up
from the river valley to the high prairies, where the ripe wheat
stood yellow and the tin roofs and weathercocks were twinkling in
the fierce sunlight. By the time Nils had done three miles, the
sun was sinking and the farm wagons on their way home from town
came rattling by, covering him with dust and making him sneeze.
When one of the farmers pulled up and offered to give him a lift,
he clambered in willingly. The driver was a thin, grizzled old man
with a long lean neck and a foolish sort of beard, like a goat's.
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
