| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Peter Pan by James M. Barrie: arrow with him, and Tink noted it, and rubbed her little hands.
"Quick, Tootles, quick," she screamed. "Peter will be so
pleased."
Tootles excitedly fitted the arrow to his bow. "Out of the
way, Tink," he shouted, and then he fired, and Wendy fluttered to
the ground with an arrow in her breast.
Chapter 6
THE LITTLE HOUSE
Foolish Tootles was standing like a conqueror over Wendy's body
when the other boys sprang, armed, from their trees.
"You are too late," he cried proudly, "I have shot the Wendy.
Peter Pan |
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 Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: a mandate? Would filial piety even dream of consenting to obey such an
order? And then to think of the cost, in labor and time, of putting
kerosene oil, every seven days, into the millions of mizutame, and the tens
of millions of bamboo flower-cups, in the Tokyo graveyards!... Impossible!
To free the city from mosquitoes it would be necessary to demolish the
ancient graveyards;-- and that would signify the ruin of the Buddhist
temples attached to them;-- and that would mean the disparition of so many
charming gardens, with their lotus-ponds and Sanscrit-lettered monuments
and humpy bridges and holy groves and weirdly-smiling Buddhas! So the
extermination of the Culex fasciatus would involve the destruction of the
poetry of the ancestral cult,-- surely too great a price to pay!...
Kwaidan |
