| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: happiness to particular individuals who live according to knowledge, such
for example as the prophet, who, as I was saying, knows the future. Is it
of him you are speaking or of some one else?
Yes, I mean him, but there are others as well.
Yes, I said, some one who knows the past and present as well as the future,
and is ignorant of nothing. Let us suppose that there is such a person,
and if there is, you will allow that he is the most knowing of all living
men.
Certainly he is.
Yet I should like to know one thing more: which of the different kinds of
knowledge makes him happy? or do all equally make him happy?
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: carefully if she would escape them all," I said.
"Yes, Inkoosi, especially as the pitfalls are dug from side to side of
the path and have a pointed stake set at the bottom of each of them.
Oh, Mameena is already as good as dead, as she deserves to be, who
without doubt is the greatest umtakati north of the Tugela."
I sighed, for somehow I was sorry for Mameena, though why she should
escape when so many better people had perished because of her I did not
know; and the messenger went on:
"The Black One [that is, Panda] sent me to tell Saduko that he would be
allowed to see you, Macumazahn, before the trial, if he wished, for he
knew that you had, been a friend of his, and thought that you might be
Child of Storm |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw: MRS TARLETON. What an idea! What puts all these things into your
head?
GUNNER. Oh, dont you think, because I'm a clerk, that I'm not one of
the intellectuals. I'm a reading man, a thinking man. I read in a
book--a high class six shilling book--this precept: Affirm your
manhood. It appealed to me. Ive always remembered it. I believe in
it. I feel I must do it to recover your respect after my cowardly
behavior. Therefore I affirm it in your presence. I tell that man
who insulted me that I dont give a damn for him. And neither I do.
TARLETON. I say, Summerhays: did you have chaps of this sort in
Jinghiskahn?
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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 The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: delivered thee from the Goths, and reformed thy laws, if thou art
no longer under the control of his successors in the empire?"
v. 94. That which God commands.] He alludes to the precept-
"Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's."
v. 98. O German Albert!] The Emperor Albert I. succeeded
Adolphus in 1298, and was murdered in 1308. See Par Canto XIX
114 v. 103. Thy successor.] The successor of Albert was Henry
of Luxembourg, by whose interposition in the affairs of Italy our
Poet hoped to have been reinstated in his native city.
v. 101. Thy sire.] The Emperor Rodolph, too intent on
increasing his power in Germany to give much of his thoughts to
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
