| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: about her dear lord, who hath fallen before his city and
the host, warding from his town and his children the
pitiless day; and she beholds him dying and drawing
difficult breath, and embracing his body wails aloud, while
the foemen behind smite her with spears on back and
shoulders and lead her up into bondage, to bear labour and
trouble, and with the most pitiful grief her cheeks are
wasted; even so pitifully fell the tears beneath the brows
of Odysseus. Now none of all the company marked him
weeping; but Alcinous alone noted it, and was ware thereof,
as he sat nigh him and heard him groaning heavily. And
The Odyssey |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: "He thinks that the Frenchman had lost sight of the poor woman
right enough. Then came that period of silence. But the horrible
ruffian had not given up his murderous purpose. He reasoned that
she would try to steal back to her child, and went to lie in wait
for her near the house.
"It must have been something like that. As she entered the light
falling about the house-ladder, he had rushed at her too soon,
impatient for vengeance. She had let out that second scream of
mortal fear when she caught sight of him, and turned to run for
life again.
"This time she was making for the river, but not in a straight
Within the Tides |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: mother's maid; that is too much to do. I acquit her."
"Well with more reason because her husband never 'quits her,' " said
Gatien, laughing at his own wit.
"We can easily remember two or three stories that will make Dinah
quake," said Lousteau. "Young man--and you too, Bianchon--let me beg
you to maintain a stern demeanor; be thorough diplomatists, an easy
manner without exaggeration, and watch the faces of the two criminals,
you know, without seeming to do so--out of the corner of your eye, or
in a glass, on the sly. This morning we will hunt the hare, this
evening we will hunt the Public Prosecutor."
The evening began with a triumph for Lousteau, who returned the album
The Muse of the Department |
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 Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: to make a fortune, and go home again and start a public-house.
There was I, sitting in that verandah, in as handsome a piece of
scenery as you could find, a splendid sun, and a fine fresh healthy
trade that stirred up a man's blood like sea-bathing; and the whole
thing was clean gone from me, and I was dreaming England, which is,
after all, a nasty, cold, muddy hole, with not enough light to see
to read by; and dreaming the looks of my public, by a cant of a
broad high-road like an avenue, and with the sign on a green tree.
So much for the morning, but the day passed and the devil anyone
looked near me, and from all I knew of natives in other islands I
thought this strange. People laughed a little at our firm and
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