| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: Ireland. All the archbishops and bishops of Ireland met him at Waterford,
received him as king and lord of Ireland, vowing loyal obedience to him
and his successors, and acknowledging fealty to them forever. These
prelates were followed by the kings of Cork, Limerick, Ossory, Meath, and
by Reginald of Waterford. Roderick O'Connor, King of Connaught, joined
them in 1175. All these accepted Henry the Second of England as their
Lord and King, swearing to be loyal to him and his successors forever.
Such was England's brutal and unjustifiable conquest of Ireland.
Ireland was not a nation, it was a tribal chaos. The Irish nation of that
day is a legend, a myth, built by poetic imagination. During the cen-
turies succeeding Henry the Second, were many eras of violence and
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: before. But while I was making up my mind as to the best way to
approach him, something happened which caused me to lose my chance.
Hearing a noise behind me, I looked round, to see a stout man arrayed in
a very fine war dress, and waving in one hand a gory spear and in the
other a head-plume of ostrich feathers, who was shouting out:
"Give me audience of the son of the King! I have a song to sing to the
Prince. I have a tale to tell to the conqueror, Cetewayo."
I stared. I rubbed my eyes. It could not be--yes, it was--Umbezi,
"Eater-up-of-Elephants," the father of Mameena. In a few seconds,
without waiting for leave to approach, he had bounded through the line
of dead princes, stopping to kick one of them on the head and address
Child of Storm |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: from her sacrifices, and she tormented Salammbo with possessions, all
the stronger for being vague, which were spread through this belief
and excited by it.
Unceasingly was Hamilcar's daughter disquieted about Tanith. She had
learned her adventures, her travels, and all her names, which she
would repeat without their having any distinct signification for her.
In order to penetrate into the depths of her dogma, she wished to
become acquainted, in the most secret part of the temple, with the old
idol in the magnificent mantle, whereon depended the destinies of
Carthage, for the idea of a god did not stand out clearly from his
representation, and to hold, or even see the image of one, was to take
Salammbo |
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 Phaedo by Plato: future state from the attributes of God, or from texts of Scripture ('Are
not two sparrows sold for one farthing?' etc.), but the truth is that we
are only filling up the void of another world with our own fancies. Again,
we often talk about the origin of evil, that great bugbear of theologians,
by which they frighten us into believing any superstition. What answer can
be made to the old commonplace, 'Is not God the author of evil, if he
knowingly permitted, but could have prevented it?' Even if we assume that
the inequalities of this life are rectified by some transposition of human
beings in another, still the existence of the very least evil if it could
have been avoided, seems to be at variance with the love and justice of
God. And so we arrive at the conclusion that we are carrying logic too
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