| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: an humble messenger in the service of a far-off daimyo; and for the time
being he was at the mercy of a much more powerful daimyo, whose wishes were
not to be questioned. Moreover Tomotada knew that he had acted foolishly,--
that he had brought about his own misfortune, by entering into a
clandestine relation which the code of the military class condemned. There
was now but one hope for him,-- a desperate hope: that Aoyagi might be able
and willing to escape and to flee with him. After long reflection, he
resolved to try to send her a letter. The attempt would be dangerous, of
course: any writing sent to her might find its way to the hands of the
daimyo; and to send a love-letter to anyinmate of the place was an
unpardonable offense. But he resolved to dare the risk; and, in the form of
Kwaidan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne: well-known name in Ballarat; and my friend here is Mr Ezra
Thomas, of the United States of America, a wealthy manufacturer
of india-rubber overshoes.'
'Stop one moment till I make a note of that,' said Gideon; any
one might have supposed he was an old practitioner.
'Perhaps you wouldn't mind my smoking a cigar?' asked Michael. He
had pulled himself together for the entrance; now again there
began to settle on his mind clouds of irresponsible humour and
incipient slumber; and he hoped (as so many have hoped in the
like case) that a cigar would clear him.
'Oh, certainly,' cried Gideon blandly. 'Try one of mine; I can
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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 The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer: that it was difficult to see in him the hero of the Nan-Yang hospital.
I could only suppose that he had treated the Boxers' raid in the same spirit
wherein he met would-be trespassers within the precincts of Redmoat.
It had been an escapade, of which he was afterwards ashamed, as, faintly,
he was ashamed of his "fortifications." "But," rapped Smith, "it was not
the visit of the burglar which prompted these elaborate precautions."
Mr. Eltham coughed nervously.
"I am aware," he said, "that having invoked official aid, I must be
perfectly frank with you, Mr. Smith. It was the burglar who was responsible
for my continuing the wire fence all round the grounds, but the electrical
contrivance followed, later, as a result of several disturbed nights.
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu |
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 Meno by Plato: Neither they nor their predecessors had any true conception of language or
of the history of philosophy. Hume's paradox has been forgotten by the
world, and did not any more than the scepticism of the ancients require to
be seriously refuted. Like some other philosophical paradoxes, it would
have been better left to die out. It certainly could not be refuted by a
philosophy such as Kant's, in which, no less than in the previously
mentioned systems, the history of the human mind and the nature of language
are almost wholly ignored, and the certainty of objective knowledge is
transferred to the subject; while absolute truth is reduced to a figment,
more abstract and narrow than Plato's ideas, of 'thing in itself,' to
which, if we reason strictly, no predicate can be applied.
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