| 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: I, too, spoke under my breath.
"Nobody is likely to come in here without knocking and getting permission."
He nodded. His face was thin and the sunburn faded, as though
he had been ill. And no wonder. He had been, I heard presently,
kept under arrest in his cabin for nearly seven weeks.
But there was nothing sickly in his eyes or in his expression.
He was not a bit like me, really; yet, as we stood leaning
over my bed place, whispering side by side, with our dark heads
together and our backs to the door, anybody bold enough to open
it stealthily would have been treated to the uncanny sight
of a double captain busy talking in whispers with his other self.
The Secret Sharer |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: for a spoonful of drink, is blest in comparison with a married man.
I'm not speaking of all that will happen to annoy, bore, irritate,
coerce, oppose, tyrannize, narcotize, paralyze, and idiotize a man in
marriage, in that struggle of two beings always in one another's
presence, bound forever, who have coupled each other under the strange
impression that they were suited. No, to tell you those things would
be merely a repetition of Boileau, and we know him by heart. Still,
I'll forgive your absurd idea if you will promise me to marry "en
grand seigneur"; to entail your property; to have two legitimate
children, to give your wife a house and household absolutely distinct
from yours; to meet her only in society, and never to return from a
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: their arrival through the papers, and on flaming hand-bills,
headed, "cash for negroes." These men were generally well
dressed, and very captivating in their manners; ever ready to
drink, to treat, and to gamble. The fate <356>of many a slave
has depended upon the turn of a single card; and many a child has
been snatched from the arms of its mothers by bargains arranged
in a state of brutal drunkenness.
The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive
them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. When a
sufficient number have been collected here, a ship is chartered,
for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile or to New
My Bondage and My Freedom |
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 Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: " 'You dare to talk of penitence after all that you said to Ernest!'
exclaimed the dying man, shaking off the Countess, who lay groveling
over his feet.--'You turn me to ice!' he added, and there was
something appalling in the indifference with which he uttered the
words. 'You have been a bad daughter; you have been a bad wife; you
will be a bad mother.'
"The wretched woman fainted away. The dying man reached his bed and
lay down again, and a few hours later sank into unconsciousness. The
priests came and administered the sacraments.
"At midnight he died; the scene that morning had exhausted his
remaining strength, and on the stroke of midnight I arrived with Daddy
Gobseck |
