| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: hers he mistook never. That Pacific Ocean, which, for all its hues and
jeweled mists, he could not learn to love, had, since long before his
day, been furrowed by the keels of Spain. Traders, and adventurers, and
men of God had passed along this coast, planting their colonies and
cloisters; but it was not his ocean. In the year that we, a thin strip of
patriots away over on the Atlantic edge of the continent, declared
ourselves an independent nation, a Spanish ship, in the name of Saint
Francis, was unloading the centuries of her own civilization at the
Golden Gate. San Diego had come earlier. Then, slowly, as mission after
mission was built along the soft coast wilderness, new ports were
established--at Santa Barbara, and by Point San Luis for San Luis Obispo,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: days they all died, except one; that is to say, himself, his wife, all his
five children, and his two apprentices; and only the maid remained alive.
But the mercy of God was greater to the rest than we had reason to
expect; for the malignity (as I have said) of the distemper was spent,
the contagion was exhausted, and also the winter weather came on
apace, and the air was clear and cold, with sharp frosts; and this
increasing still, most of those that had fallen sick recovered, and the
health of the city began to return. There were indeed some returns of
the distemper even in the month of December, and the bills increased
near a hundred; but it went off again, and so in a short while things
began to return to their own channel. And wonderful it was to see
A Journal of the Plague Year |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: each flash of lightning eagerly scanning the broad river with a
steady and anxious gaze.
CHAPTER II.
When, in compliance with Lingard's abrupt demand, Almayer
consented to wed the Malay girl, no one knew that on the day when
the interesting young convert had lost all her natural relations
and found a white father, she had been fighting desperately like
the rest of them on board the prau, and was only prevented from
leaping overboard, like the few other survivors, by a severe
wound in the leg. There, on the fore-deck of the prau, old
Lingard found her under a heap of dead and dying pirates, and had
Almayer's Folly |
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 Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians by Martin Luther: Gospel to the Gentiles, he went into Arabia without consulting a single
person. "When it had pleased God," he writes, "I did not deserve it. I had
been an enemy of Christ. I had blasphemed His Gospel. I had shed innocent
blood. In the midst of my frenzy I was called. Why? On account of my
outrageous cruelty? Indeed not. My gracious God who shows mercy unto
whom He will, pardoned all mine iniquities. He bestowed His grace upon
me, and called me for an apostle."
We also have come to the knowledge of the truth by the same kindness of
God. I crucified Christ daily in my cloistered life, and blasphemed God by
my wrong faith. Outwardly I kept myself chaste, poor, and obedient. I was
much given to fasting, watching, praying, saying of masses, and the like.
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