| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: same thing?
THEAETETUS: What will be their answer, Stranger?
STRANGER: It is clear, Theaetetus, that he who asserts the unity of being
will find a difficulty in answering this or any other question.
THEAETETUS: Why so?
STRANGER: To admit of two names, and to affirm that there is nothing but
unity, is surely ridiculous?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And equally irrational to admit that a name is anything?
THEAETETUS: How so?
STRANGER: To distinguish the name from the thing, implies duality.
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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 Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.
V.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate;
(Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow
The Fall of the House of Usher |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Mansion by Henry van Dyke: periods.
Of each period Mr. Weightman wished to have something of the
best.
He understood its value, present as a certificate, and
prospective as
an investment.
It was only in the architecture of his town house that he
remained conservative, immovable, one might almost say
Early-Victorian-Christian. His country house at
Dulwich-on-the-Sound
was a palace of the Italian Renaissance. But in town
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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 Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson: And Thin himself came day by day
To push the work in every way.
An artful builder, patent king
Of all the local building ring,
Who was there like him in the quarter
For mortifying brick and mortar,
Or pocketing the odd piastre
By substituting lath and plaster?
With plan and two-foot rule in hand,
He by the foreman took his stand,
With boisterous voice, with eagle glance
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