| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: devotion and virtue of love. But Orpheus, the son of Oeagrus, the harper,
they sent empty away, and presented to him an apparition only of her whom
he sought, but herself they would not give up, because he showed no spirit;
he was only a harp-player, and did not dare like Alcestis to die for love,
but was contriving how he might enter Hades alive; moreover, they
afterwards caused him to suffer death at the hands of women, as the
punishment of his cowardliness. Very different was the reward of the true
love of Achilles towards his lover Patroclus--his lover and not his love
(the notion that Patroclus was the beloved one is a foolish error into
which Aeschylus has fallen, for Achilles was surely the fairer of the two,
fairer also than all the other heroes; and, as Homer informs us, he was
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: side, which had no window, two strong staples were fixed, through
which the person that carried me, when I had a mind to be on
horseback, put a leathern belt, and buckled it about his waist.
This was always the office of some grave trusty servant, in whom
I could confide, whether I attended the king and queen in their
progresses, or were disposed to see the gardens, or pay a visit
to some great lady or minister of state in the court, when
Glumdalclitch happened to be out of order; for I soon began to be
known and esteemed among the greatest officers, I suppose more
upon account of their majesties' favour, than any merit of my
own. In journeys, when I was weary of the coach, a servant on
Gulliver's Travels |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: through their guarded qualifications. I took a line of intelligent
interest, tinged with a reasonable doubt of the whole story.
"If Fairyland's inside Aldington Knoll," I said, "why don't you dig it
out?"
"That's what I says," said the young ploughboy.
"There's a-many have tried to dig on Aldington Knoll," said the
respectable elder, solemnly, "one time and another. But there's
none as goes about to-day to tell what they got by digging."
The unanimity of vague belief that surrounded me was rather impressive;
I felt there must surely be SOMETHING at the root of so much conviction,
and the already pretty keen curiosity I felt about the real facts
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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 Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Belgian's eyes went wide as they passed through the
room of the seven pillars of solid gold. With ill-concealed
avarice he looked upon the age-old, golden tablets
set in the walls of nearly every room and down
the sides of many of the corridors. To the ape-man all
this wealth appeared to mean nothing.
On the two went, chance leading them toward the broad
avenue which lay between the stately piles of the
half-ruined edifices and the inner wall of the city.
Great apes jabbered at them and menaced them; but Tarzan
answered them after their own kind, giving back taunt
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar |
