| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: 'Twixt Beatrice and thee there is this wall."
As at the name of Thisbe oped his lids
The dying Pyramus, and gazed upon her,
What time the mulberry became vermilion,
Even thus, my obduracy being softened,
I turned to my wise Guide, hearing the name
That in my memory evermore is welling.
Whereat he wagged his head, and said: "How now?
Shall we stay on this side?" then smiled as one
Does at a child who's vanquished by an apple.
Then into the fire in front of me he entered,
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: be of knowing them, except the true and natural way, through their
affinities, when they are akin to each other, and through themselves? For
that which is other and different from them must signify something other
and different from them.
CRATYLUS: What you are saying is, I think, true.
SOCRATES: Well, but reflect; have we not several times acknowledged that
names rightly given are the likenesses and images of the things which they
name?
CRATYLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Let us suppose that to any extent you please you can learn
things through the medium of names, and suppose also that you can learn
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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 The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: of curiosity; and while I waited the next course, wondering the
while what I had ordered, I opened and began to read the epoch
-making document.
"DEAR SIR: I am charged with the melancholy duty of
announcing to you the death of your excellent grandfather, Mr.
Alexander Loudon, on the 17th ult. On Sunday the 13th, he
went to church as usual in the forenoon, and stopped on his
way home, at the corner of Princes Street, in one of our
seasonable east winds, to talk with an old friend. The same
evening acute bronchitis declared itself; from the first, Dr.
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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 Bucolics by Virgil: Yon bank is ill to trust to; even now
The ram himself, see, dries his dripping fleece!"
DAMOETAS
"Back with the she-goats, Tityrus, grazing there
So near the river! I, when time shall serve,
Will take them all, and wash them in the pool."
MENALCAS
"Boys, get your sheep together; if the heat,
As late it did, forestall us with the milk,
Vainly the dried-up udders shall we wring."
DAMOETAS
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