| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The School For Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan: tho' a stranger has a right to claim kindred with the wealthy--
I am sure I wish I was of that class, and had it in my power
to offer you even a small relief.
SIR OLIVER. If your Unkle, Sir Oliver were here--I should have
a Friend----
SURFACE. I wish He was Sir, with all my Heart--you should not want
an advocate with him--believe me Sir.
SIR OLIVER. I should not need one--my Distresses would recommend
me.--but I imagined--his Bounty had enabled you to become the agent
of his Charity.
SURFACE. My dear Sir--you are strangely misinformed--Sir Oliver
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling: (Thick weather prevailing)
We leave them behind (as we do now and then)
We are sure of a gun from
Each frigate we run from,
Which is often destruction to poor honest men!
Broadsides the Atlantic
We tumble short-handed,
With shot-holes to plug and new canvas to bend,
And off the Azores,
Dutch, Dons and Monsieurs
Are waiting to terrify poor honest men!
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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 Menexenus by Plato: ground at the battle of Corinth, or by treason at Lechaeum. Brave men,
too, were those who delivered the Persian king, and drove the
Lacedaemonians from the sea. I remind you of them, and you must celebrate
them together with me, and do honour to their memories.
Such were the actions of the men who are here interred, and of others who
have died on behalf of their country; many and glorious things I have
spoken of them, and there are yet many more and more glorious things
remaining to be told--many days and nights would not suffice to tell of
them. Let them not be forgotten, and let every man remind their
descendants that they also are soldiers who must not desert the ranks of
their ancestors, or from cowardice fall behind. Even as I exhort you this
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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 Apology by Xenophon: on the eve of troubles, for my part I think you ought all of you to
take heart of grace and rejoice in my good fortune."
[51] "Why precisely now?"
Now there was a certain Apollodorus,[52] who was an enthusiastic lover
of the master, but for the rest a simple-minded man. He exclaimed very
innocently, "But the hardest thing of all to bear, Socrates, is to see
you put to death unjustly."[53]
[52] Cf. "Mem." III. xi. 17; Plut. "Cato min." 46 (Clough, iv. 417).
See Cobet, "Pros. Xen." s.n.; cf. Plat. "Symp." 173; "Phaed." 54
A, 117 D; Aelian, "V. H." i. 16; Heges. "Delph." ap. Athen. xi.
507.
The Apology |
