| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Adventure by Jack London: The Tahitian smiled.
"How?" he queried. "I am have a smoke. I think about Tahiti, and
breadfruit, and jolly good time at Bora Bora. Quick, just like
that, ten boy he run out of bush for me. Each boy have long knife.
Gogoomy have long knife one hand, and Kwaque's head in other hand.
I no stop to catch 'm alive. I shoot like hell. How you catch 'm
alive, ten boy, ten long knife, and Kwaque's head?"
The scattered paths of the different boys, where they broke back
after the disastrous attempt to rush the Tahitian, soon led
together. They traced it to the Berande, which the runaways had
crossed with the clear intention of burying themselves in the huge
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: best dress, a pair of stout boots, a large grey hat
trimmed with a black feather (I've seen her in that
finery), seize an absurdly slender parasol, climb
over two stiles, tramp over three fields and along
two hundred yards of road--never further. There
stood Foster's cottage. She would help her mother
to give their tea to the younger children, wash up
the crockery, kiss the little ones, and go back to
the farm. That was all. All the rest, all the
change, all the relaxation. She never seemed to
wish for anything more. And then she fell in love.
Amy Foster |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: being the case, and the ease it is, my readers will agree with me
that there was nothing either very meritorious or very marvellous
in the integrity and moderation of my conduct at Mdlle. Reuter's
pensionnat de demoiselles.
My first business this afternoon consisted in reading the list of
places for the month, determined by the relative correctness of
the compositions given the preceding day. The list was headed, as
usual, by the name of Sylvie, that plain, quiet little girl I
have described before as being at once the best and ugliest pupil
in the establishment; the second place had fallen to the lot of a
certain Leonie Ledru, a diminutive, sharp-featured, and
The Professor |
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 Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: warlike, and strangely at variance with the missionary words.
Sometimes a passing band of hostile warriors, with blackened faces,
would peer in at us through the open windows, and often we were
forced to pause until the strangely savage, monotonous noise of the
native drums had ceased; but no Samoan, nor, I trust, white person,
changed his reverent attitude. Once, I remember a look of
surprised dismay crossing the countenance of Tusitala when my son,
contrary to his usual custom of reading the next chapter following
that of yesterday, turned back the leaves of his Bible to find a
chapter fiercely denunciatory, and only too applicable to the
foreign dictators of distracted Samoa. On another occasion the
|
