| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: they know how to provide against atmospheric changes which might endanger
the health of their children; and that, for insects, their longevity is
exceptional,-- members of the more highly evolved species living for a
considerable number of years.
But it is not especially of these matters that I wish to speak. What I
want to talk about is the awful propriety, the terrible morality, of the
ant [1]. Our most appalling ideals of conduct fall short of the ethics of
the ant,-- as progress is reckoned in time,-- by nothing less than millions
of years!... When I say "the ant," I mean the highest type of ant,-- not,
of course, the entire ant-family. About two thousand species of ants are
already known; and these exhibit, in their social organizations, widely
Kwaidan |
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 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: mon, and they all talked it over going home, and had
such a powerful lot to say about faith and good works
and free grace and preforeordestination, and I don't
know what all, that it did seem to me to be one of the
roughest Sundays I had run across yet.
About an hour after dinner everybody was dozing
around, some in their chairs and some in their rooms,
and it got to be pretty dull. Buck and a dog was
stretched out on the grass in the sun sound asleep. I
went up to our room, and judged I would take a nap
myself. I found that sweet Miss Sophia standing in
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
