| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: that the very thing which was leading me to despair--the
meaningless absurdity of life--is the only incontestable
knowledge accessible to man."
To prove this point, Tolstoy quotes the Buddha, Solomon, and
Schopenhauer. And he finds only four ways in which men of his
own class and society are accustomed to meet the situation.
Either mere animal blindness, sucking the honey without seeing
the dragon or the mice--"and from such a way," he says, "I can
learn nothing, after what I now know;" or reflective
epicureanism, snatching what it can while the day lasts--which is
only a more deliberate sort of stupefaction than the first; or
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: and his day's fishing spoiled, I said to him--"Ah, my boy, that is
a little matter. Look at what you are seeing now, and understand
what barbarism and waste mean. Look at all that beautiful water
which God has sent us hither off the Atlantic, without trouble or
expense to us. Thousands, and tens of thousands, of gallons will
run under this bridge to-day; and what shall we do with it?
Nothing. And yet: think only of the mills which that water would
have turned. Think how it might have kept up health and
cleanliness in poor creatures packed away in the back streets of
the nearest town, or even in London itself. Think even how
country folks, in many parts of England, in three months' time,
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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 Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: hope. And only the other day (May 6th, 1892), on the expressed
ground that there was no guarantee as to how the funds would be
expended, and that the president consistently refused to allow the
verification of his cash balances, the municipal council has
negatived the proposal to call up further taxes from the whites.
All is well that ends even ill, so that it end; and we believe that
with the last dollar we shall see the last of the last functionary.
Now when it is so nearly over, we can afford to smile at this
extraordinary passage, though we must still sigh over the occasion
lost.
MALIE. The way to Malie lies round the shores of Faleula bay and
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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 Georgics by Virgil: Speeds the shrill comb along the warp, or else
With Vulcan's aid boils the sweet must-juice down,
And skims with leaves the quivering cauldron's wave.
But ruddy Ceres in mid heat is mown,
And in mid heat the parched ears are bruised
Upon the floor; to plough strip, strip to sow;
Winter's the lazy time for husbandmen.
In the cold season farmers wont to taste
The increase of their toil, and yield themselves
To mutual interchange of festal cheer.
Boon winter bids them, and unbinds their cares,
Georgics |
