| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: to say to you as you said to me, 'I know Socrates as well as I know myself,
and he was wanting to speak, but he gave himself airs.' Rather I would
have you consider that from this place we stir not until you have unbosomed
yourself of the speech; for here are we all alone, and I am stronger,
remember, and younger than you:--Wherefore perpend, and do not compel me to
use violence.
SOCRATES: But, my sweet Phaedrus, how ridiculous it would be of me to
compete with Lysias in an extempore speech! He is a master in his art and
I am an untaught man.
PHAEDRUS: You see how matters stand; and therefore let there be no more
pretences; for, indeed, I know the word that is irresistible.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dreams by Olive Schreiner: I said to God, "I like this place."
God said, "Ay, dost thou!"
Birds sang, turf came to the water-edge, and trees grew from it. Away off
among the trees I saw beautiful women walking. Their clothes were of many
delicate colours and clung to them, and they were tall and graceful and had
yellow hair. Their robes trailed over the grass. They glided in and out
among the trees, and over their heads hung yellow fruit like large pears of
melted gold.
I said, "It is very fair; I would go up and taste the--"
God said, "Wait."
And after a while I noticed a very fair woman pass: she looked this way
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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 Last War: A World Set Free by H. G. Wells: lovers foregather. I know your songs, Kahn, your half-mystical
songs, in which you represent this old hard world dissolving into
a luminous haze of love--sexual love.... I don't think you are
right or true in that. You are a young, imaginative man, and you
see life--ardently--with the eyes of youth. But the power that
has brought man into these high places under this blue-veiled
blackness of the sky and which beckons us on towards the immense
and awful future of our race, is riper and deeper and greater
than any such emotions....
'All through my life--it has been a necessary part of my work--I
have had to think of this release of sexual love and the riddles
The Last War: A World Set Free |
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 Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: were shields of lacquer, of tortoise-shell and rhinoceros-hide,
strapped and bossed with red gold and set with emeralds at the
edge; there were sheaves of diamond-hilted swords, daggers, and
hunting-knives; there were golden sacrificial bowls and ladles,
and portable altars of a shape that never sees the light of day;
there were jade cups and bracelets; there were incense-burners,
combs, and pots for perfume, henna, and eye-powder, all in
embossed gold; there were nose-rings, armlets, head-bands,
finger-rings, and girdles past any counting; there were belts,
seven fingers broad, of square-cut diamonds and rubies, and
wooden boxes, trebly clamped with iron, from which the wood had
The Second Jungle Book |
