| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: To some dim shade and sink me down to sleep.
THE SONG OF PRINCESS ZEB-UN-NISSA
IN PRAISE OF HER OWN BEAUTY
(From the Persian)
When from my cheek I lift my veil,
The roses turn with envy pale,
And from their pierced hearts, rich with pain,
Send forth their fragrance like a wail.
Or if perchance one perfumed tress
Be lowered to the wind's caress,
The honeyed hyacinths complain,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: crazy Englishman, "is demanded of me, the free-born Englishman, in order
to make gold for old Pharaoh." "In order to pay off the debts of the
Bonaparte family"--sobs the French nation. The Englishman, so long as
he was in his senses, could not rid himself of the rooted thought making
gold. The Frenchmen, so long as they were busy with a revolution, could
not rid then selves of the Napoleonic memory, as the election of
December 10th proved. They longed to escape from the dangers of
revolution back to the flesh pots of Egypt; the 2d of December, 1851 was
the answer. They have not merely the character of the old Napoleon, but
the old Napoleon himself-caricatured as he needs must appear in the
middle of the nineteenth century.
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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 Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: without any opposite shore, though it be no more than the mouth of
the Thames. This point called the Naze, and the north-east point
of Kent, near Margate, called the North Foreland, making what they
call the mouth of the river and the port of London, though it be
here above sixty miles over.
At Walton-under-the-Naze they find on the shore copperas-stone in
great quantities; and there are several large works called copperas
houses, where they make it with great expense.
On this promontory is a new mark erected by the Trinity House men,
and at the public expense, being a round brick tower, near eighty
feet high. The sea gains so much upon the land here by the
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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 Republic by Plato: clumsiness of Hephaestus will not be admitted by us. 'Certainly not.'
Truth should have a high place among the virtues, for falsehood, as we were
saying, is useless to the gods, and only useful to men as a medicine. But
this employment of falsehood must remain a privilege of state; the common
man must not in return tell a lie to the ruler; any more than the patient
would tell a lie to his physician, or the sailor to his captain.
In the next place our youth must be temperate, and temperance consists in
self-control and obedience to authority. That is a lesson which Homer
teaches in some places: 'The Achaeans marched on breathing prowess, in
silent awe of their leaders;'--but a very different one in other places:
'O heavy with wine, who hast the eyes of a dog, but the heart of a stag.'
The Republic |
