| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: all at once, how is it you did not practise yourself by trying to
augment the resources of one at any rate of these--I mean your own
uncle's? The service would not be thrown away. Then if your strength
suffices in the single case you might take in hand a larger number;
but if you fail to relieve one, how could you possibly hope to succeed
with many? How absurd for a man, if he cannot carry half a
hundredweight, to attempt to carry a whole![13]
[13] Lit. "a single talent's weight . . . to carry two."
Glauc. Nay, for my part, I am willing enough to assist my uncle's
house, if my uncle would only be persuaded to listen to my advice.
Soc. Then, when you cannot persuade your uncle, do you imagine you
The Memorabilia |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Poems of Goethe, Bowring, Tr. by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Ne'er changing till the morrow's sunlight glow.
The hours resembled sisters as they went.
Yet each one from another different.
The last hour's kiss, so sadly sweet, effac'd
A beauteous network of entwining love.
Now on the threshold pause the feet, now haste.
As though a flaming cherub bade them move;
The unwilling eye the dark road wanders o'er,
Backward it looks, but closed it sees the door.
And now within itself is closed this breast,
As though it ne'er were open, and as though,
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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 Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: They were not visible, spirits uttering
Unto Love's table courteous invitations,
The first voice that passed onward in its flight,
"Vinum non habent," said in accents loud,
And went reiterating it behind us.
And ere it wholly grew inaudible
Because of distance, passed another, crying,
"I am Orestes!" and it also stayed not.
"O," said I, "Father, these, what voices are they?"
And even as I asked, behold the third,
Saying: "Love those from whom ye have had evil!"
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
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 Laches by Plato: crowd and making such great professions of his powers, I have seen at
another time making, in sober truth, an involuntary exhibition of himself,
which was a far better spectacle. He was a marine on board a ship which
struck a transport vessel, and was armed with a weapon, half spear, half
scythe; the singularity of this weapon was worthy of the singularity of the
man. To make a long story short, I will only tell you what happened to
this notable invention of the scythe spear. He was fighting, and the
scythe was caught in the rigging of the other ship, and stuck fast; and he
tugged, but was unable to get his weapon free. The two ships were passing
one another. He first ran along his own ship holding on to the spear; but
as the other ship passed by and drew him after as he was holding on, he let
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