| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy: perhaps, it is as well----'
She let go his arm and imperatively pushed it from her, tossing
her head. She had just learnt that a good deal of dignity is lost
by asking a question to which an answer is refused, even ever so
politely; for though politeness does good service in cases of
requisition and compromise, it but little helps a direct refusal.
'I don't wish to know anything of it; I don't wish it,' she went
on. 'The carriage is waiting for us at the top of the hill; we
must get in;' and Elfride flitted to the front. 'Papa, here is
your Elfride!' she exclaimed to the dusky figure of the old
gentleman, as she sprang up and sank by his side without deigning
A Pair of Blue Eyes |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: right to censure or control us, as he might the poets?
SOCRATES: Then, as this is your wish, I will describe the leaders; for
there is no use in talking about the inferior sort. In the first place,
the lords of philosophy have never, from their youth upwards, known their
way to the Agora, or the dicastery, or the council, or any other political
assembly; they neither see nor hear the laws or decrees, as they are
called, of the state written or recited; the eagerness of political
societies in the attainment of offices--clubs, and banquets, and revels,
and singing-maidens,--do not enter even into their dreams. Whether any
event has turned out well or ill in the city, what disgrace may have
descended to any one from his ancestors, male or female, are matters of
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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 Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: inches long, to some tree in a temple-grove at the Hour of the Ox (2),--
and if the person, imaginatively represented by that little straw man,
should die thereafter in atrocious agony,-- that would illustrate one
signification of nazoraeru... Or, let us suppose that a robber has entered
your house during the night, and carried away your valuables. If you can
discover the footprints of that robber in your garden, and then promptly
burn a very large moxa on each of them, the soles of the feet of the robber
will become inflamed, and will allow him no rest until he returns, of his
own accord, to put himself at your mercy. That is another kind of mimetic
magic expressed by the term nazoraeru. And a third kind is illustrated by
various legends of the Mugen-Kane.
Kwaidan |
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 All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare: What say you to this? what do you know of it?
PAROLLES.
I beseech you, let me answer to the particular of the
inter'gatories: demand them singly.
FIRST SOLDIER.
Do you know this Captain Dumain?
PAROLLES.
I know him: he was a botcher's 'prentice in Paris, from whence he
was whipped for getting the shrieve's fool with child: a dumb
innocent that could not say him nay.
[FIRST LORD lifts up his hand in anger.]
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