| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: "It developed itself, I should say, two hours after the fog lifted,
and its commencement was at a spot, roughly speaking,
about a mile and a half below Kurtz's station. We had just
floundered and flopped round a bend, when I saw an islet, a mere
grassy hummock of bright green, in the middle of the stream.
It was the ony thing of the kind; but as we opened the reach more,
I perceived it was the head of a long sand-bank, or rather of a
chain of shallow patches stretching down the middle of the river.
They were discoloured, just awash, and the whole lot was
seen just under the water, exactly as a man's backbone is
seen running down the middle of his back under the skin.
Heart of Darkness |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: you would reply if consequences are pressed upon you, especially if in the
last resort you are asked, whether the life of a catamite is not terrible,
foul, miserable? Or would you venture to say, that they too are happy, if
they only get enough of what they want?
CALLICLES: Are you not ashamed, Socrates, of introducing such topics into
the argument?
SOCRATES: Well, my fine friend, but am I the introducer of these topics,
or he who says without any qualification that all who feel pleasure in
whatever manner are happy, and who admits of no distinction between good
and bad pleasures? And I would still ask, whether you say that pleasure
and good are the same, or whether there is some pleasure which is not a
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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 Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: veiled face, approaching noiseless. With the feeling, came the
vision of a concert room, the rich hues of instruments, the
silent audience, and the loud voice of the symphony. 'Destiny
knocking at the door,' he thought; drew a stave on the plaster,
and wrote in the famous phrase from the Fifth Symphony. 'So,'
thought he, 'they will know that I loved music and had classical
tastes. They? He, I suppose: the unknown, kindred spirit that
shall come some day and read my memor querela. Ha, he shall
have Latin too!' And he added: terque quaterque beati Queis
ante ora patrum.
He turned again to his uneasy pacing, but now with an
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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 Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare: Demet. I will not stay thy questions, let me go;
Or if thou follow me, doe not beleeue,
But I shall doe thee mischiefe in the wood
Hel. I, in the Temple, in the Towne, and Field
You doe me mischiefe. Fye Demetrius,
Your wrongs doe set a scandall on my sexe:
We cannot fight for loue, as men may doe;
We should be woo'd, and were not made to wooe.
I follow thee, and make a heauen of hell,
To die vpon the hand I loue so well.
Enter.
A Midsummer Night's Dream |
