| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In the Cage by Henry James: angle into the smelly shop, of any range of chances for his wishing
still to repeat to her the two words she had in the Park scarcely
let him bring out. "See here--see here!"--the sound of these two
words had been with her perpetually; but it was in her ears to-day
without mercy, with a loudness that grew and grew. What was it
they then expressed? what was it he had wanted her to see? She
seemed, whatever it was, perfectly to see it now--to see that if
she should just chuck the whole thing, should have a great and
beautiful courage, he would somehow make everything up to her.
When the clock struck five she was on the very point of saying to
Mr. Buckton that she was deadly ill and rapidly getting worse.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: to finish a book."
"Usually," I said, "I wish I'd never begun 'em."
"Or a doctor, driven to death, wants to sit down and think out
a case. Or a barrister--or a man cramming for an examination."
"Worth a guinea a drop," said I, "and more to men like that."
"And in a duel, again," said Gibberne, "where it all depends on
your quickness in pulling the trigger."
"Or in fencing," I echoed.
"You see," said Gibberne, "if I get it as an all-round thing it will
really do you no harm at all--except perhaps to an infinitesimal
degree it brings you nearer old age. You will just have lived twice
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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 Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard: creeping on their knees before the majesty of the king, praised him
aloud. But he vouchsafed an answer to none. One noble only he caused
to be killed, because he carried in his hand a stick of the royal red
wood, which Chaka himself had given him in bygone years.[1]
[1] This beautiful wood is known in Natal as "red ivory."--ED.
On the last night before the forming of the Ingomboco, the witch-
doctors, male and female, entered the kraal. There were a hundred and
a half of them, and they were made hideous and terrible with the white
bones of men, with bladders of fish and of oxen, with fat of wizards,
and with skins of snakes. They walked in silence till they came in
front of the Intunkulu, the royal house; then they stopped and sang
Nada the Lily |
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 Memorabilia by Xenophon: Dind. cf. Isocr. "ad Demonic." 7 D.
In answer to the question: what is leisure? I discover (he said) that
most men do something:[10] for instance, the dice player,[11] the
gambler, the buffoon, do something, but these have leisure; they can,
if they like, turn and do something better; but nobody has leisure to
turn from the better to the worse, and if he does so turn, when he has
no leisure, he does but ill in that.
[10] See above, I. ii. 57; and in ref. to these definitions, K. Joel,
op. cit. p. 347 foll.
[11] For "dice-playing" see Becker, "Charicl." 354 (Engl. trans.); for
"buffoonery," ib. 98; "Symp."
The Memorabilia |
