| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: for the master of the tug when he came to fetch away our letters,
had not been hauled in as it should have been. I became annoyed at this,
for exactitude in some small matters is the very soul of discipline.
Then I reflected that I had myself peremptorily dismissed my
officers from duty, and by my own act had prevented the anchor
watch being formally set and things properly attended to.
I asked myself whether it was wise ever to interfere with the
established routine of duties even from the kindest of motives.
My action might have made me appear eccentric. Goodness only knew
how that absurdly whiskered mate would "account" for my conduct,
and what the whole ship thought of that informality of their new captain.
The Secret Sharer |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: controlled by pride on her own account and thoughtfulness for others
will sometimes allow herself when she feels securely alone.
And Mr. Casaubon was certain to remain away for some time at the Vatican.
Yet Dorothea had no distinctly shapen grievance that she could
state even to herself; and in the midst of her confused thought
and passion, the mental act that was struggling forth into clearness
was a self-accusing cry that her feeling of desolation was the fault
of her own spiritual poverty. She had married the man of her choice,
and with the advantage over most girls that she had contemplated
her marriage chiefly as the beginning of new duties: from the very
first she had thought of Mr. Casaubon as having a mind so much above
Middlemarch |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare: think you he hath confessed?
BERTRAM.
Nothing of me, has he?
SECOND LORD.
His confession is taken, and it shall be read to his face; if
your lordship be in't, as I believe you are, you must have the
patience to hear it.
[Re-enter Soldiers, with PAROLLES.]
BERTRAM.
A plague upon him! muffled! he can say nothing of me; hush, hush!
FIRST LORD.
|
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 Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad: empty, cold. Perhaps he had no more tobacco. Mr. Blunt assumed
his dandified air - nervously.
"Of course her movements are commented on in the most exclusive
drawing-rooms and also in other places, also exclusive, but where
the gossip takes on another tone. There they are probably saying
that she has got a 'coup de coeur' for some one. Whereas I think
she is utterly incapable of that sort of thing. That Venetian
affair, the beginning of it and the end of it, was nothing but a
coup de tete, and all those activities in which I am involved, as
you see (by order of Headquarters, ha, ha, ha!), are nothing but
that, all this connection, all this intimacy into which I have
The Arrow of Gold |
