| 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: Où le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant.
63. Cf. INFERNO, iii. 55-7.
si lunga tratta
di gente, ch'io non avrei mai creduto
che morte tanta n'avesse disfatta.
64. Cf. INFERNO, iv. 25-7:
Quivi, secondo che per ascoltare,
non avea pianto, ma' che di sospiri,
che l'aura eterna facevan tremare.
68. A phenomenon which I have often noticed.
74. Cf. the Dirge in Webster's _White Devil_ . 76.
The Waste Land |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: Mrs. Weir's philosophy of life was summed in one expression -
tenderness. In her view of the universe, which was all lighted up with
a glow out of the doors of hell, good people must walk there in a kind
of ecstasy of tenderness. The beasts and plants had no souls; they were
here but for a day, and let their day pass gently! And as for the
immortal men, on what black, downward path were many of them wending,
and to what a horror of an immortality! "Are not two sparrows,"
"Whosoever shall smite thee," "God sendeth His rain," "Judge not, that
ye be not judged" - these texts made her body of divinity; she put them
on in the morning with her clothes and lay down to sleep with them at
night; they haunted her like a favourite air, they clung about her like
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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 A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: first impulse, and therefore seldom listen to these cabals, which
serve no purpose, that I know of, but to encompass the heart with
adamant - I turned instantly about to the lady. -
- But she had glided off unperceived, as the cause was pleading,
and had made ten or a dozen paces down the street, by the time I
had made the determination; so I set off after her with a long
stride, to make her the proposal, with the best address I was
master of: but observing she walk'd with her cheek half resting
upon the palm of her hand, - with the slow short-measur'd step of
thoughtfulness, - and with her eyes, as she went step by step,
fixed upon the ground, it struck me she was trying the same cause
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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 Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot: in a single maxim, "Attend to your Configuration." Whether political,
ecclesiastical, or moral, all their teaching has for its object
the improvement of individual and collective Configuration --
with special reference of course to the Configuration of the Circles,
to which all other objects are subordinated.
It is the merit of the Circles that they have effectually suppressed
those ancient heresies which led men to waste energy and sympathy
in the vain belief that conduct depends upon will, effort, training,
encouragement, praise, or anything else but Configuration.
It was Pantocyclus -- the illustrious Circle mentioned above,
as the queller of the Colour Revolt -- who first convinced mankind
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions |
