| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: point is that morsel the be tender and savoury.
According to the etymology of her name--[Greek text], a cord--the
Thomisus should be like the ancient lictor, who bound the sufferer
to the stake. The comparison is not inappropriate as regards many
Spiders who tie their prey with a thread to subdue it and consume
it at their ease; but it just happens that the Thomisus is at
variance with her label. She does not fasten her Bee, who, dying
suddenly of a bite in the neck, offers no resistance to her
consumer. Carried away by his recollection of the regular tactics,
our Spider's godfather overlooked the exception; he did not know of
the perfidious mode of attack which renders the use of a bow-string
The Life of the Spider |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: he came to die (as I have to tell of) they found one strange thing
- that he had made a will, like a Christian, and the widow got the
lot: all his, they said, and all Black Jack's, and the most of
Billy Randall's in the bargain, for it was Case that kept the
books. So she went off home in the schooner MANU'A, and does the
lady to this day in her own place.
But of all this on that first morning I knew no more than a fly.
Case used me like a gentleman and like a friend, made me welcome to
Falesa, and put his services at my disposal, which was the more
helpful from my ignorance of the native. All the better part of
the day we sat drinking better acquaintance in the cabin, and I
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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 Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: deserved well of his country; but never better than now, when he
has lent his great name and great genius to the object of
preserving human life from wholesale destruction by unnecessary
poison.
And meanwhile let the Sanitary Reformer work and wait. "Go not
after the world," said a wise man, "for if thou stand still long
enough the world will come round to thee." And to Sanitary Reform
the world will come round at last. Grumbling, scoffing, cursing
its benefactors; boasting at last, as usual, that it discovered
for itself the very truths which it tried to silence, it will
come; and will be glad at last to accept the one sibylline leaf,
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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 Gorgias by Plato: CALLICLES: True.
SOCRATES: And now, my friend, as you are already beginning to be a public
character, and are admonishing and reproaching me for not being one,
suppose that we ask a few questions of one another. Tell me, then,
Callicles, how about making any of the citizens better? Was there ever a
man who was once vicious, or unjust, or intemperate, or foolish, and became
by the help of Callicles good and noble? Was there ever such a man,
whether citizen or stranger, slave or freeman? Tell me, Callicles, if a
person were to ask these questions of you, what would you answer? Whom
would you say that you had improved by your conversation? There may have
been good deeds of this sort which were done by you as a private person,
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