| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes: love potion in "Tristan". (G. Paris in "Journal des
Savants", 1902, p. 446). For many other references to the
effect of herb potions, cf. A. Hertel, "Verzauberte
Oerlichkeiten und Gegenstande in der altfranzosische
erzahlende Dichtung", p. 41 ff. (Hanover, 1908).
(40) I have pointed out the curious parallel between the
following passage and Dante's "Vita Nova", 41 ("Romantic
Review", ii. 2). There is no certain evidence that Dante
knew Chretien's work (cf. A. Farinelli, "Dante e la
Francia", vol. i., p. 16 note), but it would be strange if
he did not know such a distinguished predecessor.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: I will allow either of the two I have mentioned, or any other of
the fraternity, to be not only astrologers, but conjurers too, if
I do not produce a hundred instances in all their almanacks, to
convince any reasonable man, that they do not so much as
understand common grammar and syntax; that they are not able to
spell any word out of the usual road, nor even in their prefaces
write common sense or intelligible English. Then for their
observations and predictions, they are such as will equally suit
any age or country in the world. "This month a certain great
person will be threatened with death or sickness." This the
news-papers will tell them; for there we find at the end of the
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: questions he interrupted me by asking, "What do you do here?" He
had lost a dog, but found a man.
One old hunter who has a dry tongue, who used to come to bathe
in Walden once every year when the water was warmest, and at such
times looked in upon me, told me that many years ago he took his gun
one afternoon and went out for a cruise in Walden Wood; and as he
walked the Wayland road he heard the cry of hounds approaching, and
ere long a fox leaped the wall into the road, and as quick as
thought leaped the other wall out of the road, and his swift bullet
had not touched him. Some way behind came an old hound and her
three pups in full pursuit, hunting on their own account, and
Walden |
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 Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain: Tom. He said that no commonplace boy would ever
have got his daughter out of the cave. When Becky
told her father, in strict confidence, how Tom had
taken her whipping at school, the Judge was visibly
moved; and when she pleaded grace for the mighty
lie which Tom had told in order to shift that whipping
from her shoulders to his own, the Judge said with a
fine outburst that it was a noble, a generous, a mag-
nanimous lie -- a lie that was worthy to hold up its head
and march down through history breast to breast with
George Washington's lauded Truth about the hatchet!
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
