| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: gates upon him:--What is there to affright his conscience?--Conscience has
got safely entrenched behind the Letter of the Law; sits there
invulnerable, fortified with Cases and Reports so strongly on all sides;--
that it is not preaching can dispossess it of its hold.'
(Here Corporal Trim and my uncle Toby exchanged looks with each other.--
Aye, Aye, Trim! quoth my uncle Toby, shaking his head,--these are but sorry
fortifications, Trim.--O! very poor work, answered Trim, to what your
Honour and I make of it.--The character of this last man, said Dr. Slop,
interrupting Trim, is more detestable than all the rest; and seems to have
been taken from some pettifogging Lawyer amongst you:--Amongst us, a man's
conscience could not possibly continue so long blinded,--three times in a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: station. Back of and inland from this row on the edge of the
cliff, and scattered widely in open space, are a large store
stocked with everything on earth, the Somali quarters of low
whitewashed buildings, the cattle corrals, the stables, wild
animal cages, granaries, blacksmith and carpenter shops, wagon
sheds and the like. Outside the enclosure, and a half mile away,
are the conical grass huts that make up the native village. Below
the cliff is a concrete dam, an electric light plant, a pumping
plant and a few details of the sort.
Such is a relief map of Juja proper. Four miles away, and on
another river, is Long Juja, a strictly utilitarian affair where
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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 Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: This liberty--too much akin to anarchy, in which indeed it issued
for awhile--seems to have asserted itself in continual petty
resistance to officials whom they did not respect, and who, in their
turn, were more than a little afraid of the very men out of whose
ranks they had sprung.
The French Government--one may say, every Government on the
Continent in those days--had the special weakness of all
bureaucracies; namely, that want of moral force which compels them
to fall back at last on physical force, and transforms the ruler
into a bully, and the soldier into a policeman and a gaoler. A
Government of parvenus, uncertain of its own position, will be
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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 Prufrock/Other Observations by T. S. Eliot: And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.
The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the level of the roofs.
The Boston Evening Transcript
The readers of the Boston Evening Transcript
Sway in the blind like a field of ripe corn.
Prufrock/Other Observations |
