| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: the head of their own government when it was thus being filched
from them? You say she was anti-foreign--would you have been
very much in love with Germany, Russia, France and England under
those circumstances? That she acted unwisely in placing herself
in the hands of the conservatives and allying herself with the
superstitious Boxers, we must all frankly admit. But what would
you have done? Might you not--I do not say you would with your
intelligence--but might you not have been induced to have
clutched at as great a log as the patriotic Boxers seemed to
present, if you had been as near drowning as she was?
"It is generally supposed," says one of her critics, "that Kang
|
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 Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: five hours' notice. The announcement of my departure reduced Lambert
to dreadful dejection.
"Shall I ever seen you again?" said he in his gentle voice, as he
clasped me in his arms. "You will live," he went on, "but I shall die.
If I can, I will come back to you."
Only the young can utter such words with the accent of conviction that
gives them the impressiveness of prophecy, of a pledge, leaving a
terror of its fulfilment. For a long time indeed I vaguely looked for
the promised apparition. Even now there are days of depression, of
doubt, alarm, and loneliness, when I am forced to repel the intrusion
of that sad parting, though it was not fated to be the last.
Louis Lambert |
