| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Marie by H. Rider Haggard: two, and some Kaffirs also to carry the man, if he still lives."
Now for the end of the story. As the Hottentot Klaus was too exhausted
to move that night, it was arranged that we should start at dawn.
Accordingly, I rose before the light, and was just finishing my
breakfast when Marie appeared at the wagon in which I slept. I got up
to greet her, and, there being no one in sight, we kissed each other
several times.
"Have done, my heart," she said, pushing me away. "I come to you from
my father, who is sick in his stomach and would see you."
"Which means that I shall have to go after your cousin alone," I replied
with indignant emphasis.
Marie |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: he has never buried a good old relative, infirm and poor, he will not
understand these pages, which to some will seem redolent of musk, to
others as colorless and virtuous as those of Florian. In short, the
reader must have known the luxury of tears, must have felt the silent
pangs of a passing memory, the vision of a dear yet far-off Shade,--
memories which bring regret for all that earth has swallowed up, with
smiles for vanished joys.
And now, believe that the writer would not, for the wealth of England,
steal from poesy a single lie with which to embellish this narrative.
The following is a true history, on which you may safely spend the
treasures of your sensibility--if you have any.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: this inexplicable flight of yours. We can only put things down at
present, in charity, to your ignorance--"
"You have to consider the general body of opinion, too," said
Widgery.
"Precisely," said Miss Mergle. "There is no such thing as conduct
in the absolute." "If once this most unfortunate business gets
about," said the clergyman, "it will do you infinite harm."
"But I'VE done nothing wrong. Why should I be responsible for
other people's--"
"The world has no charity," said Mrs. Milton.
"For a girl," said Jessie. "No."
|
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 Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: subconscious feeling and emerge into a world of forms
and definite thought.
Let us carry the particular instance, given above, a
stage farther, even to the confines of abstract Thought
and Philosophy. I have spoken of "The Spirit of the
Hive" as if the term were applicable to the Human as
well as to the Bee tribe. The individual bee obviously
has never THOUGHT about that 'Spirit,' nor mentally understood
what Maeterlinck means by it; and yet in terms
of actual experience it is an intense reality to the bee
(ordaining for instance on some fateful day the slaughter
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
