| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: 'To-morrow, when I have offered sacrifices to Zeus and all the Gods, having
loaded my ships well, I will drag them down into the deep; and then you
shall see, if you have a mind, and if such things are a care to you, early
in the morning my ships sailing over the fishy Hellespont, and my men
eagerly plying the oar; and, if the illustrious shaker of the earth gives
me a good voyage, on the third day I shall reach the fertile Phthia.'
And before that, when he was reviling Agamemnon, he said,--
'And now to Phthia I will go, since to return home in the beaked ships is
far better, nor am I inclined to stay here in dishonour and amass wealth
and riches for you.'
But although on that occasion, in the presence of the whole army, he spoke
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: is justly celebrated.
360. The following lines were stimulated by the account of one
of the Antarctic expeditions (I forget which, but I think one
of Shackleton's): it was related that the party of explorers,
at the extremity of their strength, had the constant delusion
that there was _one more member_ than could actually be counted.
366-76. Cf. Hermann Hesse, _Blick ins Chaos_:
Schon ist halb Europa, schon ist zumindest der halbe Osten Europas auf dem
Wege zum Chaos, fährt betrunken im heiligen Wahn am Abgrund entlang
und singt dazu, singt betrunken und hymnisch wie Dmitri Karamasoff sang.
Ueber diese Lieder lacht der Bürger beleidigt, der Heilige
The Waste Land |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: thanks to me, we had heard nothing from her. Doctor Walker had
taken up his practice again, and we saw him now and then flying
past along the road, always at top speed. The murder of Arnold
Armstrong was still unavenged, and I remained firm in the
position I had taken--to stay at Sunnyside until the thing was at
least partly cleared.
And yet, for all its quiet, it was on Wednesday night that
perhaps the boldest attempt was made to enter the house. On
Thursday afternoon the laundress sent word she would like to
speak to me, and I saw her in my private sitting-room, a small
room beyond the dressing-room.
The Circular Staircase |
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 Professor by Charlotte Bronte: moment I recollected that it was called Mademoiselle, not Madame
Reuter's pensionnat.
"I! Oh, no! I manage the house and look after the servants, as
my friend Madame Pelet does for Monsieur her son--nothing more.
Ah! you thought I gave lessons in class--did you?"
And she laughed loud and long, as though the idea tickled her
fancy amazingly.
"Madame is in the wrong to laugh," I observed; "if she does not
give lessons, I am sure it is not because she cannot;" and I
whipped out a white pocket-handkerchief and wafted it, with a
French grace, past my nose, bowing at the name time.
The Professor |
