| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: Tokubei. This Tokubei was the richest person in the district, and the
muraosa, or headman, of the village. In most matters he was fortunate; but
he reached the age of forty without knowing the happiness of becoming a
father. Therefore he and his wife, in the affliction of their
childlessness, addressed many prayers to the divinity Fudo Myo O, who had a
famous temple, called Saihoji, in Asamimura.
At last their prayers were heard: the wife of Tokubei gave birth to a
daughter. The child was very pretty; and she received the name of Tsuyu. As
the mother's milk was deficient, a milk-nurse, called O-Sode, was hired for
the little one.
O-Tsuyu grew up to be a very beautiful girl; but at the age of fifteen she
Kwaidan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: Chaucer and Chapman, and Petrarch. And to him all the arts were
one. 'Our critics,' he remarks with much wisdom, 'seem hardly
aware of the identity of the primal seeds of poetry and painting,
nor that any true advancement in the serious study of one art co-
generates a proportionate perfection in the other'; and he says
elsewhere that if a man who does not admire Michael Angelo talks of
his love for Milton, he is deceiving either himself or his
listeners. To his fellow-contributors in the LONDON MAGAZINE he
was always most generous, and praises Barry Cornwall, Allan
Cunningham, Hazlitt, Elton, and Leigh Hunt without anything of the
malice of a friend. Some of his sketches of Charles Lamb are
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: Out of the groves of the valley, where clear the blackbirds sang.
Sheer from the trees of the valley the face of the mountain sprang;
Sheer and bare it rose, unscalable barricade,
Beaten and blown against by the generous draught of the trade.
Dawn on its fluted brow painted rainbow light,
Close on its pinnacled crown trembled the stars at night.
Here and there in a cleft clustered contorted trees,
Or the silver beard of a stream hung and swung in the breeze.
High overhead, with a cry, the torrents leaped for the main,
And silently sprinkled below in thin perennial rain.
Dark in the staring noon, dark was Rua's ravine,
Ballads |
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 Time Machine by H. G. Wells: descend. At last, with intense relief, I saw dimly coming up, a
foot to the right of me, a slender loophole in the wall.
Swinging myself in, I found it was the aperture of a narrow
horizontal tunnel in which I could lie down and rest. It was not
too soon. My arms ached, my back was cramped, and I was
trembling with the prolonged terror of a fall. Besides this, the
unbroken darkness had had a distressing effect upon my eyes. The
air was full of the throb and hum of machinery pumping air down
the shaft.
`I do not know how long I lay. I was roused by a soft hand
touching my face. Starting up in the darkness I snatched at my
The Time Machine |
