| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: should not be married if the queen pleased.
293. Cf. PURGATORIO, v. 133:
'Ricorditi di me, che son la Pia;
Siena mi fe', disfecemi Maremma.'
307. _V._ St. Augustine's CONFESSIONS: 'to Carthage then I came,
where a cauldron of unholy loves sang all about mine ears'.
308. The complete text of the Buddha's Fire Sermon (which corresponds
in importance to the Sermon on the Mount) from which these words are taken,
will be found translated in the late Henry Clarke Warren's _Buddhism
in Translation_ (Harvard Oriental Series). Mr. Warren was one
of the great pioneers of Buddhist studies in the Occident.
The Waste Land |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: Poor Mr. Casaubon had imagined that his long studious bachelorhood
had stored up for him a compound interest of enjoyment, and that
large drafts on his affections would not fail to be honored; for we
all of us, grave or light, get our thoughts entangled in metaphors,
and act fatally on the strength of them. And now he was in danger
of being saddened by the very conviction that his circumstances
were unusually happy: there was nothing external by which he could
account for a certain blankness of sensibility which came over him
just when his expectant gladness should have been most lively,
just when he exchanged the accustomed dulness of his Lowick library
for his visits to the Grange. Here was a weary experience in which
Middlemarch |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: slept in peace, knowing that her sole treasure was in safety, far from
danger, far from scaffolds. She took pleasure in believing that they
had each chosen the wisest course, a course which would save to HIM
both life and fortune.
With this secret comfort in her mind, she was ready to make all the
concessions required by those evil days, and without sacrificing
either her dignity as a woman, or her aristocratic beliefs, she
conciliated the good-will of those about her. Madame de Dey had fully
understood the difficulties that awaited her on coming to Carentan. To
seek to occupy a leading position would be daily defiance to the
scaffold; yet she pursued her even way. Sustained by her motherly
|
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 Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: a week or so while we were hunting for the oxen. 'Off you go, and you
too, Tom, and mind you don't come back till you have found them. They
have trekked back along the Middelburg Road, and are a dozen miles off
by now, I'll be bound. Now, no words; go both of you.'
"Tom, the driver, swore, and caught the lad a hearty kick, which he
richly deserved, and then, having tied old Kaptein up to the disselboom
with a reim, they took their assegais and sticks, and started. I would
have gone too, only I knew that somebody must look after the waggon, and
I did not like to leave either of the boys with it at night. I was in a
very bad temper, indeed, although I was pretty well used to these sort
of occurrences, and soothed myself by taking a rifle and going to kill
Long Odds |
