| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker: they would be the most dangerous things that ever were in the world.
Tradition says that one of these monsters lived in the Marsh of the
East, and came up to a cave in Diana's Grove, which was also called
the Lair of the White Worm. Such creatures may have grown down as
well as up. They MAY have grown into, or something like, human
beings. Lady Arabella March is of snake nature. She has committed
crimes to our knowledge. She retains something of the vast strength
of her primal being--can see in the dark--has the eyes of a snake.
She used the nigger, and then dragged him through the snake's hole
down to the swamp; she is intent on evil, and hates some one we
love. Result. . . "
Lair of the White Worm |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: I suspect that, leaving aside the protestations and tributes of
writers who, one is safe in saying, care for little else in the
world than the rhythm of their lines and the cadence of their
phrase, the love of the sea, to which some men and nations confess
so readily, is a complex sentiment wherein pride enters for much,
necessity for not a little, and the love of ships - the untiring
servants of our hopes and our self-esteem - for the best and most
genuine part. For the hundreds who have reviled the sea, beginning
with Shakespeare in the line
"More fell than hunger, anguish, or the sea,"
down to the last obscure sea-dog of the "old model," having but few
The Mirror of the Sea |
