| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: lovely line of the shoulder, following the curve of the hip, the
draped form of the long limb, right down to her fine ankle below a
torn, soiled flounce; and as far as the point of the shabby, high-
heeled, blue slipper, dangling from her well-shaped foot, which she
moved slightly, with quick, nervous jerks, as if impatient of my
presence. And in the scent of the massed flowers I seemed to
breathe her special and inexplicable charm, the heady perfume of
the everlastingly irritated captive of the garden.
I looked at her rounded chin, the Jacobus chin; at the full, red
lips pouting in the powdered, sallow face; at the firm modelling of
the cheek, the grains of white in the hairs of the straight sombre
'Twixt Land & Sea |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: moats are its special domain, which in this its flowering season it
wrests wholly from their more proper occupant--the water. A dense
growth of leather-like leaves, above which rise in majestic isolation
the solitary flowers, encircles the outer rampart, shutting the
castle in as it might be the palace of the Sleeping Beauty. In the
delightful dreaminess that creeps over one as he stands thus before
some old daimyo's former abode in the heart of Japan, he forgets all
his metaphysical difficulties about Nirvana, for he fancies he has
found it, one long Lotus afternoon.
And then last, but in some sort first, since it has been taken for
the imperial insignia, comes the chrysanthemum. The symmetry of its
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Sportsman by Xenophon: endangers those of the huntsmen themselves. Supposing that the animal
has given in from exhaustion at some moment in the chase, and they are
forced to come to close quarters;[42] whether he has taken to the
water, or stands at bay against some craggy bank, or does not choose
to come out from some thicket (since neither net nor anything else
hinders him from bearing down like a tornado on whoever approaches);
still, even so, advance they must, come what come may, to the attack.
And now for a display of that hardihood which first induced them to
indulge a passion not fit for carpet knights[43]--in other words, they
must ply their boar-spears and assume that poise of body[44] already
described, since if one must meet misfortune, let it not be for want
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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 The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: between individual workmen and individual bourgeois take more and
more the character of collisions between two classes. Thereupon
the workers begin to form combinations (Trades Unions) against
the bourgeois; they club together in order to keep up the rate of
wages; they found permanent associations in order to make
provision beforehand for these occasional revolts. Here and
there the contest breaks out into riots.
Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time.
The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate
result, but in the ever-expanding union of the workers. This
union is helped on by the improved means of communication that
The Communist Manifesto |
