| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: during which Hoichi felt his whole body shake to the beating of his
heart,-- there was dead silence.
At last the gruff voice muttered close to him:--
"Here is the biwa; but of the biwa-player I see -- only two ears!... So
that explains why he did not answer: he had no mouth to answer with --
there is nothing left of him but his ears... Now to my lord those ears I
will take -- in proof that the august commands have been obeyed, so far as
was possible"...
At that instant Hoichi felt his ears gripped by fingers of iron, and torn
off! Great as the pain was, he gave no cry. The heavy footfalls receded
along the verandah,-- descended into the garden,-- passed out to the
Kwaidan |
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 Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton: range dense with forests of tall thin trees on the
other. But the valley itself was less Californian
than any part of the country Rezanov had seen.
Smooth and flat and free of undergrowth and set
with at least ten thousand oaks, it looked more like
a splendid English park, long preserved, than the
recent haunt of naked savages. There were deer
and quail in abundance, here and there an open field
of grain. Long beards of pale green moss waved
from the white oaks, wild flowers, golden red and
pale blue, burst underfoot. There were hedges of
Rezanov |
