| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: to the house and haggle with me are always youths of sanguine
temperament, broad natures, whose failure at examinations spoils
their appetites and hinders them from visiting the opera with
their usual regularity. I let the first class off easily, but the
second I chivy through a whole year.
"Sit down," I say to my visitor; "what have you to tell me?"
"Excuse me, professor, for troubling you," he begins, hesitating,
and not looking me in the face. "I would not have ventured to
trouble you if it had not been . . . I have been up for your
examination five times, and have been ploughed. . . . I beg you,
be so good as to mark me for a pass, because . . ."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: Japanese verses about butterflies.
"And this season, O Butterfly, is indeed the season of your bright
prosperity: so comely you now are that in the whole world there is nothing
more comely. For that reason all other insects admire and envy you;-- there
is not among them even one that does not envy you. Nor do insects alone
regard you with envy: men also both envy and admire you. Soshu of China, in
a dream, assumed your shape;-- Sakoku of Japan, after dying, took your
form, and therein made ghostly apparition. Nor is the envy that you inspire
shared only by insects and mankind: even things without soul change their
form into yours;-- witness the barley-grass, which turns into a butterfly.
[13]
Kwaidan |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: wass, I would not put a hand to such a piece of pusiness."
"That is handsomely said," I replied, "and I am sure you will not stand
up a second time to be the actor for my private enemies."
"Indeed, no, Palfour," said he; "and I think I was used extremely
suffeeciently myself to be set up to fecht with an auld wife, or all
the same as a bairn whateffer! And I will tell the Master so, and
fecht him, by Cot, himself!"
"And if you knew the nature of Mr. Simon's quarrel with me," said I,
"you would be yet the more affronted to be mingled up with such
affairs."
He swore he could well believe it; that all the Lovats were made of the
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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 Damaged Goods by Upton Sinclair: much the worse for me!"
The doctor answered: "That responsibility is one which I cannot
let you take, for it will be necessary that I should accept my
part, and I refuse it."
"What will you do?"
"I shall warn the nurse. I shall inform her exactly,
completely--something which you have not done, I feel sure."
"What?" cried Madame Dupont, wildly. "You, a doctor, called into
a family which gives you its entire confidence, which hands over
to you its most terrible secrets, its most horrible miseries--you
would betray them?"
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