| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: partial to the girl we shall say that she failed decidedly to endear
herself to that simple, virtuous and, I believe, teetotal household.
It's my conviction that an angel would have failed likewise. It's
no use going into details; suffice it to state that before the year
was out she was again at the Fynes' door.
This time she was escorted by a stout youth. His large pale face
wore a smile of inane cunning soured by annoyance. His clothes were
new and the indescribable smartness of their cut, a genre which had
never been obtruded on her notice before, astonished Mrs. Fyne, who
came out into the hall with her hat on; for she was about to go out
to hear a new pianist (a girl) in a friend's house. The youth
Chance |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: to their native dust. I mean Miss Muloch's "John Halifax,
Gentleman," and Mr. Thackeray's "Esmond," two books which no man
or woman ought to read without being the nobler for them.
"John Halifax, Gentleman," is simply the history of a poor young
clerk, who rises to be a wealthy mill-owner in the manufacturing
districts, in the early part of this century. But he contrives to
be an heroic and ideal clerk, and an heroic and ideal mill-owner;
and that without doing anything which the world would call heroic
or ideal, or in anywise stepping out of his sphere, minding simply
his own business, and doing the duty which lies nearest him. And
how? By getting into his head from youth the strangest notion,
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: (4) Now a rokuro-kubi is ordinarily conceived as a goblin whose neck
stretches out to great lengths, but which nevertheless always remains
attached to its body.
(5) A Chinese collection of stories on the supernatural.
[4] A present made to friends or to the household on returning from a
journey is thus called. Ordinarily, of course, the miyage consists of
something produced in the locality to which the journey has been made: this
is the point of Kwairyo's jest.
(6) Present-day Nagano Prefecture.
A DEAD SECRET
(1) On the present-day map, Tamba corresponds roughly to the central area
Kwaidan |
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 Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: to their fullest extent,--fertilizing them by the accomplishment of
even their caprices, and surrounding them with a brilliancy that
enlarges them, with refinements that purify them, with a thousand
delicacies that make them still more alluring. If you hate dinners on
the grass, and meals ill-served, if you feel a pleasure in seeing a
damask cloth that is dazzlingly white, a silver-gilt dinner service,
and porcelain of exquisite purity, lighted by transparent candles,
where miracles of cookery are served under silver covers bearing coats
of arms, you must, to be consistent, leave the garrets at the tops of
the houses, and the grisettes in the streets, abandon garrets,
grisettes, umbrellas, and overshoes to men who pay for their dinners
Ferragus |
