| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: railroads over which he was to travel were clearly marked, with
all the ports and cities at which he expected to stop. He was
photographed with Gladstone, and hailed as the "Bismarck of the
East," but when he returned to Peking, for no reason but
jealousy, "he was treated as an extinct volcano." The Empress
Dowager invited him to the Summer Palace where he was shown about
the place by the eunuchs, treated to tea and pipes, and led into
pavilions where only Her Majesty was allowed to enter, and then
denounced to the Board of Punishments who were against him to a
man. And now this Grand Secretary whom kings and courts had
honoured, whom emperors and presidents had feted, and our own
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: As when some heifer, seeking for her steer
Through woodland and deep grove, sinks wearied out
On the green sedge beside a stream, love-lorn,
Nor marks the gathering night that calls her home-
As pines that heifer, with such love as hers
May Daphnis pine, and I not care to heal.
"Draw from the town, my songs, draw Daphnis home.
These relics once, dear pledges of himself,
The traitor left me, which, O earth, to thee
Here on this very threshold I commit-
Pledges that bind him to redeem the debt.
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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 Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: was only suspicion; none of them, so far as I know, ever
undertook to analyze the matter or unravel the mystery. There is
no doubt a reasonable explanation, but we must go for it to the
Forbidden City, the most mysterious royal dwelling in the world,
where white men have never gone except by invitation from the
throne, save on one occasion.
In 1901, while the court was in hiding at Hsianfu, the city to
which they fled when the allies entered Peking, the western half
of the Forbidden City was thrown open to the public, the only
condition being that said public have a certificate which would
serve as a pass to the American boys in blue who guarded the Wu
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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 Poems of William Blake by William Blake: The weeping virgin, trembling kneels before the risen sun.
Till we arise link'd in a golden band and never part:
But walk united bearing food to all our tender flowers.
Dost thou O little cloud? I fear that I am not like thee:
For I walk through the vales of Har, and smell the sweetest flowers:
But I feed not the little flowers: I hear the warbling birds,
But I feed not the warbling birds, they fly and seek their food:
But Thel delights in these no more because I fade away
And all shall say, without a use this shining women liv'd,
Or did she only live to be at death the food of worms.
The Cloud reclind upon his airy throne and answerd thus.
Poems of William Blake |
