| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen: I was sure that my pulse was steady and regular, and that I was
in my real and true senses. I then fixed my eyes quietly on
what was before me.
"Though horror and revolting nausea rose up within me,
and an odour of corruption choked my breath, I remained firm.
I was then privileged or accursed, I dare not say which, to see
that which was on the bed, lying there black like ink,
transformed before my eyes. The skin, and the flesh, and the
muscles, and the bones, and the firm structure of the human
body that I had thought to be unchangeable, and permanent as
adamant, began to melt and dissolve.
The Great God Pan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman: There was not a shade of that timid withdrawal or pretty resistance
which are so--provocative.
"You see, dearest," she said, "you have to be patient with us.
We are not like the women of your country. We are Mothers, and
we are People, but we have not specialized in this line."
"We" and "we" and "we"--it was so hard to get her to be
personal. And, as I thought that, I suddenly remembered how we
were always criticizing OUR women for BEING so personal.
Then I did my earnest best to picture to her the sweet intense joy
of married lovers, and the result in higher stimulus to all creative work.
"Do you mean," she asked quite calmly, as if I was not holding
Herland |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: for nothing is fixed in them or their ideas,--they are at war with fixed
principles.' I suppose, Theodorus, that you have never seen them in time
of peace, when they discourse at leisure to their disciples? 'Disciples!
they have none; they are a set of uneducated fanatics, and each of them
says of the other that they have no knowledge. We must trust to ourselves,
and not to them for the solution of the problem.' Well, the doctrine is
old, being derived from the poets, who speak in a figure of Oceanus and
Tethys; the truth was once concealed, but is now revealed by the superior
wisdom of a later generation, and made intelligible to the cobbler, who, on
hearing that all is in motion, and not some things only, as he ignorantly
fancied, may be expected to fall down and worship his teachers. And 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 Protagoras by Plato: workmanship, and very finished, but such minutiae would be tedious. I
should like, however, to point out the general intention of the poem, which
is certainly designed in every part to be a refutation of the saying of
Pittacus. For he speaks in what follows a little further on as if he meant
to argue that although there is a difficulty in becoming good, yet this is
possible for a time, and only for a time. But having become good, to
remain in a good state and be good, as you, Pittacus, affirm, is not
possible, and is not granted to man; God only has this blessing; 'but man
cannot help being bad when the force of circumstances overpowers him.' Now
whom does the force of circumstance overpower in the command of a vessel?--
not the private individual, for he is always overpowered; and as one who is
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