| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm: their power is gone, and I shall be free, and will come and bring you
the Water of Life, and will wash you with it, and bring you back to
life and health.' And all came to pass as she had said; Heinel bore
all, and spoke not a word; and the third night the princess came, and
fell on his neck and kissed him. Joy and gladness burst forth
throughout the castle, the wedding was celebrated, and he was crowned
king of the Golden Mountain.
They lived together very happily, and the queen had a son. And thus
eight years had passed over their heads, when the king thought of his
father; and he began to long to see him once again. But the queen was
against his going, and said, 'I know well that misfortunes will come
Grimm's Fairy Tales |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: other questions familiar to the moderns, which have no place in ancient
philosophy. The world has grown older in two thousand years, and has
enlarged its stock of ideas and methods of reasoning. Yet the germ of
modern thought is found in ancient, and we may claim to have inherited,
notwithstanding many accidents of time and place, the spirit of Greek
philosophy. There is, however, no continuous growth of the one into the
other, but a new beginning, partly artificial, partly arising out of the
questionings of the mind itself, and also receiving a stimulus from the
study of ancient writings.
Considering the great and fundamental differences which exist in ancient
and modern philosophy, it seems best that we should at first study them
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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 A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: he needed help. Pierre said, to console him, that Jacques and Perotte
(the brother's daughter) could be married. Then, to help Joseph
Cambremer to earn his bread, Pierre took him with him a-fishing; for
the poor man was now obliged to live by his daily labor. His wife was
dead of the fever, and money was owing for Perotte's nursing. The wife
of Pierre Cambremer owed about one hundred francs to divers persons
for the little girl,--linen, clothes, and what not,--and it so chanced
that she had sewed a bit of Spanish gold into her mattress for a nest-
egg toward paying off that money. It was wrapped in paper, and on the
paper was written by her: 'For Perotte.' Jacquette Brouin had had a
fine education; she could write like a clerk, and had taught her son
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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 Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard: howling of beasts and sounds of war; then there was silence, and none
had been seen to return from the mountain, only all day long the
vultures hung over it.
"Let us go up the mountain," I said.
At first they feared, because of the evil name of the place; but in
the end they came with me, and we followed on the path of the impi of
the Slayers and guessed all that had befallen it. At length we reached
the knees of stone, and saw the place of the great fight of the Wolf-
Brethren. All those who had taken part in that fight were now but
bones, because the vultures had picked them every one, except Galazi,
for on the breast of Galazi lay the old wolf Deathgrip, that was yet
Nada the Lily |
