| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine and Mucedorus by William Shakespeare: Take thou the North for thy dominion,
A country full of hills and ragged rocks,
Replenished with fierce untamed beasts,
As correspondent to thy martial thoughts,
Live long, my sons, with endless happiness,
And bear firm concordance amongst your selves.
Obey the counsels of these fathers grave,
That you may better bear out violence.--
But suddenly, through weakness of my age,
And the defect of youthful puissance,
My malady increaseth more and more,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton: turn so white that he wheeled about and left the
tent. A month or six weeks! And the speed and
safety of his journey across Siberia depended upon
his making the greater part of it before the heavy
autumn rains swelled the rivers and flooded the
swamps. Winter or summer the journey from Ok-
hotsk to St. Petersburg might be made in four
months; with the wealth and influence at his com-
mand, possibly in less; but in the deluge between
he was liable to detentions lasting nearly as long
again, to say nothing of illness caused by inevitable
Rezanov |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: "Two splinters of wood, and some linen for a bandage."
"Do you hear, Rosa?" said Gryphus, "the prisoner is going to
set my arm, that's a saving; come, assist me to get up, I
feel as heavy as lead."
Rosa lent the sufferer her shoulder; he put his unhurt arm
around her neck, and making an effort, got on his legs,
whilst Cornelius, to save him a walk, pushed a chair towards
him.
Gryphus sat down; then, turning towards his daughter, he
said, --
"Well, didn't you hear? go and fetch what is wanted."
The Black Tulip |
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: its early and pathetic clinging to the tradition of the Eden-
garden, its careless and vigorous boyhood, its meditative
youth, with consciousness of sin and endless expiatory
ritual in Nature's bosom, its fleeting visions of salvation, and
finally its complete disillusionment and despair in the world-
slaughter and unbelief of the twentieth century!
Leaving Wordsworth, however, and coming back to our
main line of thought, we may point out that while early
peoples were intellectually mere babies--with their endless
yarns about heroes on horseback leaping over wide rivers
or clouds of monks flying for hundreds of miles through the
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
