| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Reef by Edith Wharton: waited for what he should say next...No, decidedly she could
not speak; she no longer even knew what she had meant to
say...
The same experience repeated itself several times that day
and the next. When she and Darrow were apart she exhausted
herself in appeal and interrogation, she formulated with a
fervent lucidity every point in her imaginary argument. But
as soon as she was alone with him something deeper than
reason and subtler than shyness laid its benumbing touch
upon her, and the desire to speak became merely a dim
disquietude, through which his looks, his words, his touch,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: you, Rhodaspes and Tigranes, and with you my father, Abgarus.
You are all welcome. This house grows bright with the joy of
your presence."
There were nine of the men, differing widely in age, but
alike in the richness of their dress of many-coloured silks,
and in the massive golden collars around their necks, marking
them as Parthian nobles, and in the winged circles of gold
resting upon their breasts, the sign of the followers of
Zoroaster.
They took their places around a small black altar at the
end of the room, where a tiny flame was burning. Artaban,
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Heritage of the Desert by Zane Grey: level lanes, and so on, and on, out to the vast unknown. Then Hare
grasped a little of its meaning. It was a sun-painted, sun-governed
world. Here was deep and majestic Nature eternal and unchangeable. But
it was only through Eschtah's eyes that he saw its parched slopes, its
terrifying desolateness, its sleeping death.
When the old chieftain's lips opened Hare anticipated the austere speech,
the import that meant only pain to him, and his whole inner being seemed
to shrink.
"The White Prophet's child of red blood is lost to him," said Eschtah.
"The Flower of the Desert is as a grain of drifting sand."
XIII
The Heritage of the Desert |
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 The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: went ashore. He was certainly not more than thirty, and the
elderly mate, with a murmur to me of "That's my old man," proceeded
to give instances of the natural unhandiness of the ship in a sort
of deprecatory tone, as if to say, "You mustn't think I bear a
grudge against her for that."
The instances do not matter. The point is that there are ships
where things DO go wrong; but whatever the ship - good or bad,
lucky or unlucky - it is in the forepart of her that her chief mate
feels most at home. It is emphatically HIS end of the ship,
though, of course, he is the executive supervisor of the whole.
There are HIS anchors, HIS headgear, his foremast, his station for
The Mirror of the Sea |
