| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: incontrovertible did not cause him some uneasiness about his wife
and the dear girls? He transfixed me with a pitying stare and
requested me in his deep solemn voice to remember the "well-
established fact" that genius was not transmissible.
I said only "Oh! Isn't it?" and he thought he had silenced me by an
unanswerable argument. But he continued to talk of his glorious
father-in-law, and it was in the course of that conversation that he
told me how, when the Liverpool relations of the poet's late wife
naturally addressed themselves to him in considerable concern,
suggesting a friendly consultation as to the boy's future, the
incensed (but always refined) poet wrote in answer a letter of mere
Chance |
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 Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: "I think it a very dismal one," answered Proserpina.
"It suits my taste, however," answered Pluto, who was apt to be
sullen when anybody disagreed with him. "At all events, its
water has one excellent quality; for a single draught of it
makes people forget every care and sorrow that has hitherto
tormented them. Only sip a little of it, my dear Proserpina,
and you will instantly cease to grieve for your mother, and
will have nothing in your memory that can prevent your being
perfectly happy in my palace. I will send for some, in a golden
goblet, the moment we arrive."
"O, no, no, no!" cried Proserpina, weeping afresh. "I had a
Tanglewood Tales |
