| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: To hear one's skipper go on like that in such weather was enough
to drive any fellow out of his mind. It worked me up into a sort
of desperation. I just took it into my own hands and went
away from him, boiling, and--But what's the use telling you?
YOU know! . . . Do you think that if I had not been pretty fierce
with them I should have got the men to do anything? Not It!
The bo's'n perhaps? Perhaps! It wasn't a heavy sea--it was a sea
gone mad! I suppose the end of the world will be something like that;
and a man may have the heart to see it coming once and be done with it--
but to have to face it day after day--I don't blame anybody.
I was precious little better than the rest. Only--I was an officer
The Secret Sharer |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson: Stitching tucks and mending tears,
Each a hill that I could climb,
And talking nonsense all the time--
O dear me,
That I could be
A sailor on a the rain-pool sea,
A climber in the clover tree,
And just come back a sleepy-head,
Late at night to go to bed.
Garden Days
I
A Child's Garden of Verses |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: the bear, he was unstrung. His lady, however, promptly restrung
him; and by the time they had repacked the now clamorous
changelings, and were rattling on their way to the Taylors', he
began to share her outraged feelings properly, as a husband and a
father should; but when he reached the Taylors' and learned from
Miss Wood that at this house a child had been unwrapped whom
nobody could at all identify, and that Mr. and Mrs. Taylor were
already far on the road to the Swintons', James Westfall whipped
up his horses and grew almost as thirsty for revenge as was his
wife.
Where the steer had been roasted, the powdered ashes were now
The Virginian |
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 Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: at night and had long audiences. Babalatchi, who was always a
third party at those meetings of potentate and trader, knew how
to resist all attempts on the part of the curious to ascertain
the subject of so many long talks. When questioned with languid
courtesy by the grave Abdulla he sought refuge in a vacant stare
of his one eye, and in the affectation of extreme simplicity.
"I am only my master's slave," murmured Babalatchi, in a
hesitating manner. Then as if making up his mind suddenly for a
reckless confidence he would inform Abdulla of some transaction
in rice, repeating the words, "A hundred big bags the Sultan
bought; a hundred, Tuan!" in a tone of mysterious solemnity.
Almayer's Folly |
