| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: centuries. As soon as they began quarrelling they lost the power of
discovering. The want of the inductive faculty in their attempts at
philology is utterly ludicrous. Most of their derivations of words are
about on a par with Jacob Bohmen's etymology of sulphur, wherein he
makes sul, if I recollect right, signify some active principle of
combustion, and phur the passive one. It was left for more patient and
less noisy men, like Grimm, Bopp, and Buttmann, to found a science of
philology, to discover for us those great laws which connect modern
philology with history, ethnology, physiology, and with the very deepest
questions of theology itself. And in the meanwhile, these Alexandrians'
worthless criticism has been utterly swept away; while their real work,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Phoenix and the Turtle by William Shakespeare: On the sole Arabian tree,
Herald sad and trumpet be,
To whose sound chaste wings obey.
But thou, shrieking harbinger,
Foul pre-currer of the fiend,
Augur of the fever's end,
To this troop come thou not near.
From this session interdict
Every fowl of tyrant wing,
Save the eagle, feather'd king:
Keep the obsequy so strict.
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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 Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: that the flash shone in on every side through breaches in the
wall, so that I seemed to be clambering aloft upon an open
scaffold, but the same passing brightness showed me the steps
were of unequal length, and that one of my feet rested that
moment within two inches of the well.
This was the grand stair! I thought; and with the thought, a gust
of a kind of angry courage came into my heart. My uncle had sent
me here, certainly to run great risks, perhaps to die. I swore I
would settle that "perhaps," if I should break my neck for it;
got me down upon my hands and knees; and as slowly as a snail,
feeling before me every inch, and testing the solidity of every
Kidnapped |
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 Agesilaus by Xenophon: the Five in the hall of ephors; and thus gave clear proof that he
would not accept the whole earth in exchange for the land of his
fathers, nor newly-acquired in place of ancient friends, nor base
gains ingloriously purchased rather than the perilous pursuit of
honour and uprightness.[16]
[15] Cf. Hor. "Od." III. v. 50.
[16] See Pindar, "Olymp." vi. 14.
And, indeed, glancing back at the whole period during which he
remained in the exercise of his authority, no act of deeper
significance in proof of his kingly qualities need be named than this.
He found the cities which he was sent out to govern each and all a
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