| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: And he to me: "Ere unto thee the shore
Reveal itself, thou shalt be satisfied;
Such a desire 'tis meet thou shouldst enjoy."
A little after that, I saw such havoc
Made of him by the people of the mire,
That still I praise and thank my God for it.
They all were shouting, "At Philippo Argenti!"
And that exasperate spirit Florentine
Turned round upon himself with his own teeth.
We left him there, and more of him I tell not;
But on mine ears there smote a lamentation,
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: discretion to the winds. Calling his warriors about him, he
commanded them to charge, and, with brandishing spears
and savage yells, the little force of scarcely more than a
hundred dashed madly toward the village gates. Before the
clearing had been half crossed the Arabs opened up a
withering fire from behind the palisade.
With the first volley Waziri fell. The speed of the
chargers slackened. Another volley brought down a half
dozen more. A few reached the barred gates, only to be shot
in their tracks, without the ghost of a chance to gain the
inside of the palisade, and then the whole attack crumpled,
The Return of Tarzan |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: Then swiftly, easily, he advances, with a long, powerful
breast-stroke,--keeping his bearded head well up to watch for
drift,--seeming to slide with a swing from swell to
swell,--ascending, sinking,--alternately presenting breast or
shoulder to the wave; always diminishing more and more to the
eyes of Mateo and Miguel,--till he becomes a moving speck,
occasionally hard to follow through the confusion of heaping
waters ... You are not afraid of the sharks, Feliu!--no: they
are afraid of you; right and left they slunk away from your
coming that morning you swam for life in West-Indian waters, with
your knife in your teeth, while the balls of the Cuban
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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 The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: the significant touch. You must admit, Hirst, that a little Italian
town even would vulgarise the whole scene, would detract from
the vastness--the sense of elemental grandeur." He swept his hands
towards the forest, and paused for a moment, looking at the great
green mass, which was now falling silent. "I own it makes us seem
pretty small--us, not them." He nodded his head at a sailor who
leant over the side spitting into the river. "And that, I think,
is what my wife feels, the essential superiority of the peasant--"
Under cover of Mr. Flushing's words, which continued now gently
reasoning with St. John and persuading him, Terence drew Rachel
to the side, pointing ostensibly to a great gnarled tree-trunk
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