| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: mother. She settles everything. She interviews Nikolái,
the cook, and orders dinner; she sends us out for walks, makes
our shirts, is always nursing some baby at the breast; all day
long she is bustling about the house with hurried steps. One can
be naughty with her, though she is sometimes angry and punishes
us.
She knows more about everything than anybody else. She
knows that one must wash every day, that one must eat soup at
dinner, that one must talk French, learn not to crawl about on
all fours, not to put one's elbows on the table; and if she says
that one is not to go out walking because it is just going to
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare: And then I will her charmed eie release
From monsters view, and all things shall be peace
Puck. My Fairie Lord, this must be done with haste,
For night-swift Dragons cut the Clouds full fast,
And yonder shines Auroras harbinger;
At whose approach Ghosts wandring here and there,
Troope home to Church-yards; damned spirits all,
That in crosse-waies and flouds haue buriall,
Alreadie to their wormie beds are gone;
For feare least day should looke their shames vpon,
They wilfully themselues exile from light,
A Midsummer Night's Dream |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: that he should not be pushed over by the crowds of women
visitors, and so that he could conveniently bless those who came.
They told him that people needed him, and that fulfilling
Christ's law of love he could not refuse their demand to see him,
and that to avoid them would be cruel. He could not but agree
with this, but the more he gave himself up to such a life the
more he felt that what was internal became external, and that the
fount of living water within him dried up, and that what he did
now was done more and more for men and less and less for God.
Whether he admonished people, or simply blessed them, or prayed
for the sick, or advised people about their lives, or listened to
|
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 The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: 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.
_V._ Baudelaire, Preface to _Fleurs du Mal_.
II. A GAME OF CHESS
77. Cf. _Antony and Cleopatra_, II. ii. 190.
92. Laquearia. _V. Aeneid_, I. 726:
dependent lychni laquearibus aureis incensi, et noctem flammis
funalia vincunt.
98. Sylvan scene. _V._ Milton, _Paradise Lost_, iv. 140.
The Waste Land |
