| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: notions about colors in dress, about wearing her hair; and she
seemed to have already imbibed a small stock of social prejudices
not altogether in harmony with the republicanism of Viosca's
Point. Occasional swarthy visitors,--men of the Manilla
settlements,--she spoke of contemptuously as negues-marrons; and
once she shocked Carmen inexpressibly by stopping in the middle
of her evening prayer, declaring that she wanted to say her
prayers to a white Virgin; Carmen's Senora de Guadalupe was only
a negra! Then, for the first time, Carmen spoke so crossly to
the child as to frighten her. But the pious woman's heart smote
her the next moment for that first harsh word;--and she caressed
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: chastening to reward him for a little patience at first. It
seems hardly possible that any being should get evil from so
healthy a book as the LEAVES OF GRASS, which is simply
comical wherever it falls short of nobility; but if there be
any such, who cannot both take and leave, who cannot let a
single opportunity pass by without some unworthy and unmanly
thought, I should have as great difficulty, and neither more
nor less, in recommending the works of Whitman as in lending
them Shakespeare, or letting them go abroad outside of the
grounds of a private asylum.
CHAPTER IV - HENRY DAVID THOREAU: HIS CHARACTER AND OPINIONS
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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 The Brother of Daphne by Dornford Yates: impossible for my companion to wait while I rectified the
trouble, but we managed to raise what had once been a dog-cart,
and in that she left for Tendon Harrow. She left, I say, for she
would not let me come with her. She was so firm. I implored
her, but it was no good. She simply would not be entreated, and
I had to content myself with putting her carefully in and
watching her drive away in the care of a blushing half-boots,
half-ostler, who could not have been more than eighteen.
I got home about six.
"Where on earth have you been?" said Daphne, as I entered the
smoking-room.
The Brother of Daphne |
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 Protagoras by Plato: Bias of Priene, and our own Solon, and Cleobulus the Lindian, and Myson the
Chenian; and seventh in the catalogue of wise men was the Lacedaemonian
Chilo. All these were lovers and emulators and disciples of the culture of
the Lacedaemonians, and any one may perceive that their wisdom was of this
character; consisting of short memorable sentences, which they severally
uttered. And they met together and dedicated in the temple of Apollo at
Delphi, as the first-fruits of their wisdom, the far-famed inscriptions,
which are in all men's mouths--'Know thyself,' and 'Nothing too much.'
Why do I say all this? I am explaining that this Lacedaemonian brevity was
the style of primitive philosophy. Now there was a saying of Pittacus
which was privately circulated and received the approbation of the wise,
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