| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: the most notable thing about the book is its intense stupidity; its
dreariness, barrenness, shallowness, ignorance of the human heart,
want of any human interest. If it be an epos, the actors in it are
not men and women, but ferrets--with here and there, of course, a
stray rabbit, on whose brains they may feed. It is the inhuman
mirror of an inhuman age, in which the healthy human heart can find
no more interest than in a pathological museum.
That last, indeed, "Gil Blas" is; a collection of diseased
specimens. No man or woman in the book, lay or clerical, gentle or
simple, as far as I can remember, do their duty in any wise, even if
they recollect that they have any duty to do. Greed, chicane,
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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 Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: and hairy coat of his lady-love. He recalled the paw of
Sheeta's mate across Sheeta's face--no incongruity there.
He thought of little Manu hugging his she, and how the one
seemed to belong to the other. Even the proud male bird,
with his gay plumage, bore a close resemblance to his
quieter spouse, while Numa, but for his shaggy mane,
was almost a counterpart of Sabor, the lioness.
The males and the females differed, it was true;
but not with such differences as existed between Tarzan
and Teeka.
Tarzan was puzzled. There was something wrong. His arm
The Jungle Tales of Tarzan |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson: And he knows neither what nor when;
But no magicians are attending
To make him see as he saw then,
And he will never find again
The face that once had been the rending
Of all his purpose among men.
He blames her not, nor does he chide her,
And she has nothing new to say;
If he were Bluebeard he could hide her,
But that's not written in the play,
And there will be no change to-day;
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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 Ion by Plato: restricted to Homer, and that he knows nothing of inferior poets, such as
Hesiod and Archilochus;--he brightens up and is wide awake when Homer is
being recited, but is apt to go to sleep at the recitations of any other
poet. 'And yet, surely, he who knows the superior ought to know the
inferior also;--he who can judge of the good speaker is able to judge of
the bad. And poetry is a whole; and he who judges of poetry by rules of
art ought to be able to judge of all poetry.' This is confirmed by the
analogy of sculpture, painting, flute-playing, and the other arts. The
argument is at last brought home to the mind of Ion, who asks how this
contradiction is to be solved. The solution given by Socrates is as
follows:--
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