| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes: his heart through his eyes. And this wound is more enduring than
any inflicted by lance or sword. A sword-blow is cured and
healed at once as soon as a doctor attends to it, but the wound
of love is worst when it is nearest to its physician. This is
the wound of my lord Yvain, from which he will never more
recover, for Love has installed himself with him. He deserts and
goes away from the places he was wont to frequent. He cares for
no lodging or landlord save this one, and he is very wise in
leaving a poor lodging-place in order to betake himself to him.
In order to devote himself completely to him, he will have no
other lodging-place, though often he is wont to seek out lowly
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Salome by Oscar Wilde: m'ennuie. Taisez-vous, je vous dis . . . Salome, pensez e ce que
vous faites. Cet homme vient peut-etre de Dieu. Je suis sur qu'il
vient de Dieu. C'est un saint homme. Le doigt de Dieu l'a touche.
Dieu a mis dans sa bouche des mots terribles. Dans le palais, comme
dans le desert, Dieu est toujours avec lui . . . Au moins, c'est
possible. On ne sait pas, mais il est possible que Dieu soit pour
lui et avec lui. Aussi peut-etre que s'il mourrait, il m'arriverait
un malheur. Enfin, il a dit que le jour ou il mourrait il
arriverait un malheur e quelqu'un. Ce ne peut etre qu'e moi.
Souvenez-vous, j'ai glisse dans le sang quand je suis entre ici.
Aussi j'ai entendu un battement d'ailes dans l'air, un battement
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: herself, that by no alteration of pace or gesture she might
afford to her enemies the triumph of calculating the excess of
her mental agitation, nay, despair. She stalked, therefore, with
a slow rather than a swift step, and, holding herself upright,
seemed at once to endure with firmness that woe which was passed,
and bid defiance to that which was about to come. But when she
was beyond the sight of those who remained in the hut, she could
no longer suppress the extremity of her agitation. Drawing her
mantle wildly round her, she stopped at the first knoll, and
climbing to its summit, extended her arms up to the bright moon,
as if accusing heaven and earth for her misfortunes, and uttered
|
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 My Antonia by Willa Cather: should hook our two strong black farm-horses to the scraper and break a road
through to the Shimerdas', so that a wagon could go when it was necessary.
Fuchs, who was the only cabinetmaker in the neighbourhood was set to work
on a coffin.
Jelinek put on his long wolfskin coat, and when we admired it,
he told us that he had shot and skinned the coyotes, and the young man
who `batched' with him, Jan Bouska, who had been a fur-worker in Vienna,
made the coat. From the windmill I watched Jelinek come out of the barn
with the blacks, and work his way up the hillside toward the cornfield.
Sometimes he was completely hidden by the clouds of snow that rose about him;
then he and the horses would emerge black and shining.
My Antonia |
