| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: "Where is the police?" roared the object of Roderick's
persecution, at the same time giving an instinctive clutch to his
breast. "Why is this lunatic allowed to go at large?"
"Ha, ha!" chuckled Roderick, releasing his grasp of the man.--
"His bosom serpent has stung him then!"
Often it pleased the unfortunate young man to vex people with a
lighter satire, yet still characterized by somewhat of snake-like
virulence. One day he encountered an ambitious statesman, and
gravely inquired after the welfare of his boa constrictor; for of
that species, Roderick affirmed, this gentleman's serpent must
needs be, since its appetite was enormous enough to devour the
Mosses From An Old Manse |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Economist by Xenophon: [4] "The branch of justice which concerns us, viz. righteous dealing
between man and man."
[5] For this sense of {tous egkheirountas} cf. Thuc. iv. 121; "Hell."
IV. v. 16. Al. {dedesthai tous egkheirountas kai thanatousthai en
tis alo poion} (Weiske), "let the attempt be punished with
imprisonment"; "let him who is caught in the act be put to death."
[6] Cf. Plat. "Laws," 754 E.
[7] Or, "the royal laws," i.e. of Persia. Cf. "Anab." I. ix. 16;
"Cyrop." I. ii. 2, 3. Or possibly = "regal"; cf. Plat. "Minos,"
317 C; {to men orthon nomos esti basilikos}.
[8] Lit. "benefited."
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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 Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: around the fire ready to eat, that she stole away, and when they went to
the tree where the victim was bound, they found him gone. And they cried
one to another, 'She, only she, has done this, who has always said, 'I like
not the taste of man-flesh; men are too like me; I cannot eat them.' 'She
is mad,' they cried; 'let us kill her!' So, in those dim, misty times that
men reck not of now, that they hardly believe in, that woman died. But in
the heads of certain men and women a new thought had taken root; they said,
'We also will not eat of her. There is something evil in the taste of
human flesh.' And ever after, when the fleshpots were filled with man-
flesh, these stood aside, and half the tribe ate human flesh and half not;
then, as the years passed, none ate.
|
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 Walking by Henry David Thoreau: annually, for the faithful reader, in sympathy with surrounding
Nature.
I do not know of any poetry to quote which adequately expresses
this yearning for the Wild. Approached from this side, the best
poetry is tame. I do not know where to find in any literature,
ancient or modern, any account which contents me of that Nature
with which even I am acquainted. You will perceive that I demand
something which no Augustan nor Elizabethan age, which no
culture, in short, can give. Mythology comes nearer to it than
anything. How much more fertile a Nature, at least, has Grecian
mythology its root in than English literature! Mythology is the
Walking |
