| 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: how he had succeeded in getting so far, how he had managed to remain--
why he did not instantly disappear. `I went a little farther,'
he said, `then still a little farther--till I had gone so far that I
don't know how I'll ever get back. Never mind. Plenty time.
I can manage. You take Kurtz away quick--quick--I tell you.'
The glamour of youth enveloped his parti-coloured rags, his destitution,
his loneliness, the essential desolation of his futile wanderings.
For months--for years--his life hadn't been worth a day's purchase;
and there he was gallantly, thoughtlessly alive, to all appearances
indestructible solely by the virtue of his few years and of his
unreflecting audacity. I was seduced into something like admiration--
Heart of Darkness |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: argument.
PROTARCHUS: Proceed.
SOCRATES: We were maintaining a little while since, that when desires, as
they are termed, exist in us, then the body has separate feelings apart
from the soul--do you remember?
PROTARCHUS: Yes, I remember that you said so.
SOCRATES: And the soul was supposed to desire the opposite of the bodily
state, while the body was the source of any pleasure or pain which was
experienced.
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: Then now you may infer what happens in such cases.
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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 Adieu by Honore de Balzac: never succeeded in teaching her to say her own name Stephanie.
Philippe was sustained in his agonizing enterprise by hope, which
never abandoned him. When, on fine autumn mornings, he found the
countess sitting peacefully on a bench, beneath a poplar now
yellowing, the poor lover would sit at her feet, looking into her eyes
as long as she would let him, hoping ever that the light that was in
them would become intelligent. Sometimes the thought deluded him that
he saw those hard immovable rays softening, vibrating, living, and he
cried out,--
"Stephanie! Stephanie! thou hearest me, thou seest me!"
But she listened to that cry as to a noise, the soughing of the wind
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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 Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Thuvia turned toward Jav.
"Why is it," she asked, "that you observe such careful
nicety in the regulation of your creatures when Tario
knows quite as well as you that they are but figments
of your brain? Why not permit them simply to dissolve
into thin air until you again require their futile service?"
"You do not understand them," replied Jav. "While they
exist they are real. I do but call them into being now,
and in a way direct their general actions. But thereafter,
until I dissolve them, they are as actual as you or I.
Their officers command them, under my guidance. I am
Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
