| 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: The next day he again went and asked for his ball; the wild man said:
'Open my door,' but the boy would not. On the third day the king had
ridden out hunting, and the boy went once more and said: 'I cannot
open the door even if I wished, for I have not the key.' Then the wild
man said: 'It lies under your mother's pillow, you can get it there.'
The boy, who wanted to have his ball back, cast all thought to the
winds, and brought the key. The door opened with difficulty, and the
boy pinched his fingers. When it was open the wild man stepped out,
gave him the golden ball, and hurried away. The boy had become afraid;
he called and cried after him: 'Oh, wild man, do not go away, or I
shall be beaten!' The wild man turned back, took him up, set him on
Grimm's Fairy Tales |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: wenches of towns to handle looms for muslin and lace."
[9] Landowner.
"But you yourself maintain workshops?" remarked Platon.
"I do; but who established them? They established themselves. For
instance, wool had accumulated, and since I had nowhere to store it, I
began to weave it into cloth--but, mark you, only into good, plain
cloth of which I can dispose at a cheap rate in the local markets, and
which is needed by peasants, including my own. Again, for six years on
end did the fish factories keep dumping their offal on my bank of the
river; wherefore, at last, as there was nothing to be done with it, I
took to boiling it into glue, and cleared forty thousand roubles by
Dead Souls |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Kenilworth by Walter Scott: your lord and mine; for Heaven, as holy writ saith, hath given
the husband supremacy and dominion over the wife--I think it runs
so, or something like it."
"I receive at this moment so pleasant a surprise, Master Foster,"
answered the Countess, "that I cannot but excuse the rigid
fidelity which secluded me from these apartments, until they had
assumed an appearance so new and so splendid."
"Ay lady," said Foster, "it hath cost many a fair crown; and that
more need not be wasted than is absolutely necessary, I leave you
till my lord's arrival with good Master Richard Varney, who, as I
think, hath somewhat to say to you from your most noble lord and
Kenilworth |
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 Phaedo by Plato: feeling that when the man dies the soul will be dispersed, and that this
may be the extinction of her. For admitting that she may have been born
elsewhere, and framed out of other elements, and was in existence before
entering the human body, why after having entered in and gone out again may
she not herself be destroyed and come to an end?
Very true, Simmias, said Cebes; about half of what was required has been
proven; to wit, that our souls existed before we were born:--that the soul
will exist after death as well as before birth is the other half of which
the proof is still wanting, and has to be supplied; when that is given the
demonstration will be complete.
But that proof, Simmias and Cebes, has been already given, said Socrates,
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