| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mansion by Henry van Dyke: or not.
But if it is, count me out, please. Tom saved me from going to
the devil,
six years ago; and I'll be damned if I don't help him to the best
of
my ability now."
John Weightman looked at his son steadily. "Harold," he said at
last,
"you know I dislike violent language, and it never has any
influence with me. If I could honestly approve of this
proposition of yours, I'd let you have the money; but I can't;
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: Tuan will be angry. Merciful Allah! what jewels that man has
got!"
Nina slipped past the outstretched hand of the slave into the
dark passage where, in the crimson glow of the hanging curtain,
close by its other end, she could see a small dark form crouching
near the wall. Her mother was feasting her eyes and ears with
what was taking place on the front verandah, and Nina approached
to take her share in the rare pleasure of some novelty. She was
met by her mother's extended arm and by a low murmured warning
not to make a noise.
"Have you seen them, mother?" asked Nina, in a breathless
Almayer's Folly |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: how to calm vague sufferings like those which assailed Modeste. He
speaks to young girls in their own language; he can allay the anguish
of a bleeding wound and lull the moans, even the sobs of woe. His gift
lies not in stirring words, nor in the remedy of strong emotions, he
contents himself with saying in harmonious tones which compel belief,
"I suffer with you; I understand you; come with me; let us weep
together beside the brook, beneath the willows." And they follow him!
They listen to his empty and sonorous poetry like infants to a nurse's
lullaby. Canalis, like Nodier, enchants the reader by an artlessness
which is genuine in the prose writer and artificial in the poet, by
his tact, his smile, the shedding of his rose-leaves, in short by his
Modeste Mignon |
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 A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: not be perhaps opened, or at least not fully, or in the clothes of the
first infected person; for I cannot think that anybody could be seized
with the contagion in a fatal and mortal degree for nine weeks
together, and support his state of health so well as even not to
discover it to themselves; yet if it were so, the argument is the
stronger in favour of what I am saying: namely, that the infection is
retained in bodies apparently well, and conveyed from them to those
they converse with, while it is known to neither the one nor the other.
Great were the confusions at that time upon this very account, and
when people began to be convinced that the infection was received in
this surprising manner from persons apparently well, they began to be
A Journal of the Plague Year |
