| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: manoeuvres like those of a peacock spreading his tail, had brought
Paul to the point at which his future mother-in-law desired to see
him. He was intoxicated with love, and his eyes, the sure thermometer
of the soul, indicated the degree of passion at which a man commits a
thousand follies.
"Natalie is so beautiful," he whispered to the mother, "that I can
conceive the frenzy which leads a man to pay for his happiness by
death."
Madame Evangelista replied with a shake of her head:--
"Lover's talk, my dear count. My husband never said such charming
things to me; but he married me without a fortune and for thirteen
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: acquaintance whom he remembered from my former visit, and we asked him to
repeat the dialogue. At first he was not very willing, and complained of
the trouble, but at length he consented. He told us that Pythodorus had
described to him the appearance of Parmenides and Zeno; they came to
Athens, as he said, at the great Panathenaea; the former was, at the time
of his visit, about 65 years old, very white with age, but well favoured.
Zeno was nearly 40 years of age, tall and fair to look upon; in the days of
his youth he was reported to have been beloved by Parmenides. He said that
they lodged with Pythodorus in the Ceramicus, outside the wall, whither
Socrates, then a very young man, came to see them, and many others with
him; they wanted to hear the writings of Zeno, which had been brought to
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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 Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: threw a gloomy lustre over the moor, and gave a deeper purple to
the broad outline of heathy mountains which surrounded this
desolate spot. The Dwarf sate watching the clouds as they
lowered above each other in masses of conglomerated vapours, and,
as a strong lurid beam of the sinking luminary darted full on his
solitary and uncouth figure, he might well have seemed the demon
of the storm which was gathering, or some gnome summoned forth
from the recesses of the earth by the subterranean signals of its
approach. As he sate thus, with his dark eye turned towards the
scowling and blackening heaven, a horseman rode rapidly up to
him, and stopping, as if to let his horse breathe for an instant,
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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 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: his own, too, it was, he told me. Poetry!' He rolled his eyes
at the recollection of these delights. `Oh, he enlarged my mind!'
`Good-bye,' said I. He shook hands and vanished in the night.
Sometimes I ask myself whether I had ever really seen him--
whether it was possible to meet such a phenomenon! . . .
"When I woke up shortly after midnight his warning came to my mind
with its hint of danger that seemed, in the starred darkness,
real enough to make me get up for the purpose of having a look round.
On the hill a big fire burned, illuminating fitfully a crooked corner
of the station-house. One of the agents with a picket of a few of
our blacks, armed for the purpose, was keeping guard over the ivory;
Heart of Darkness |
