| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: yes it's idiotic. When I pass one of these places . . . did you
notice that there is something infernal about the aspect of every
individual stone or brick of them, something malicious as if matter
were enjoying its revenge of the contemptuous spirit of man. Did
you notice? You didn't? Eh? Well I am perhaps a little mad on
that point. When I pass one of these places I must avert my eyes.
I couldn't have gone to meet de Barral. I should have shrunk from
the ordeal. You'll notice that it looks as if Anthony (a brave man
indubitably) had shirked it too. Little Fyne's flight of fancy
picturing three people in the fatal four wheeler--you remember?--
went wide of the truth. There were only two people in the four
 Chance |
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 Euthyphro by Plato: SOCRATES: Good: but I must still ask what is this attention to the gods
which is called piety?
EUTHYPHRO: It is such, Socrates, as servants show to their masters.
SOCRATES: I understand--a sort of ministration to the gods.
EUTHYPHRO: Exactly.
SOCRATES: Medicine is also a sort of ministration or service, having in
view the attainment of some object--would you not say of health?
EUTHYPHRO: I should.
SOCRATES: Again, there is an art which ministers to the ship-builder with
a view to the attainment of some result?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, Socrates, with a view to the building of a ship.
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