| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: leaned against a fence, fanning himself with a yellow handkerchief.
"Seven and a half," answered Herr Erchardt shortly.
"Eight," bellowed the sage.
"Seven and a half!"
"Eight!"
"The man is mad," said Herr Erchardt.
"Well, please let him be mad in peace," said I, putting my hands over my
ears.
"Such ignorance must not be allowed to go uncontradicted," said he, and
turning his back on us, too exhausted to cry out any longer, he held up
seven and a half fingers.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin: as in playfully biting each other, or their masters' hands.
I have described, in the second chapter, the gait and
appearance of a dog when cheerful, and the marked antithesis
presented by the same animal when dejected and disappointed,
with his head, ears, body, tail, and chops drooping, and eyes dull.
Under the expectation of any great pleasure, dogs bound and jump
about in an extravagant manner, and bark for joy. The tendency
to bark under this state of mind is inherited, or runs in the breed:
greyhounds rarely bark, whilst the Spitz-dog barks so incessantly
on starting for a walk with his master that he becomes a nuisance.
[1] `The Anatomy of Expression,' 1844, p. 140.An agony of pain is
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence: 'Come on! Let's make hay of Bolshevism!' said Dukes.
'I'm afraid Bolshevism is a large question,' said Hammond, shaking his
head seriously.
'Bolshevism, it seems to me,' said Charlie, 'is just a superlative
hatred of the thing they call the bourgeois; and what the bourgeois is,
isn't quite defined. It is Capitalism, among other things. Feelings and
emotions are also so decidedly bourgeois that you have to invent a man
without them.
'Then the individual, especially the PERSONAL man, is bourgeois: so he
must be suppressed. You must submerge yourselves in the greater thing,
the Soviet-social thing. Even an organism is bourgeois: so the ideal
Lady Chatterley's Lover |
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 Just Folks by Edgar A. Guest: Means so much to fellows sore,
Seems we ought to keep repeatin'
Smiles an' praises more an' more.
A Boost for Modern Methods
In some respects the old days were perhaps ahead of these,
Before we got to wanting wealth and costly luxuries;
Perhaps the world was happier then, I'm not the one to say,
But when it's zero weather I am glad I live to-day.
Old-fashioned winters I recall--the winters of my youth--
I have no great desire for them to-day, I say in truth;
The frost upon the window panes was beautiful to see,
Just Folks |
