| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: the middle of the road, would await the approach of that
important person, ready with hospitable invitation. But
Babalatchi's discretion was proof even against the combined
assaults of good fellowship and of strong gin generously
administered by the open-hearted Chinaman. Jim-Eng, owning
himself beaten, was left uninformed with the empty bottle, and
gazed sadly after the departing form of the statesman of Sambir
pursuing his devious and unsteady way, which, as usual, led him
to Almayer's compound. Ever since a reconciliation had been
effected by Dain Maroola between his white friend and the Rajah,
the one-eyed diplomatist had again become a frequent guest in the
Almayer's Folly |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: inferior also;--he who can judge of the good speaker is able to judge of
the bad. And poetry is a whole; and he who judges of poetry by rules of
art ought to be able to judge of all poetry.' This is confirmed by the
analogy of sculpture, painting, flute-playing, and the other arts. The
argument is at last brought home to the mind of Ion, who asks how this
contradiction is to be solved. The solution given by Socrates is as
follows:--
The rhapsode is not guided by rules of art, but is an inspired person who
derives a mysterious power from the poet; and the poet, in like manner, is
inspired by the God. The poets and their interpreters may be compared to a
chain of magnetic rings suspended from one another, and from a magnet. The
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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 Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: swelled up, and Emilia's eyes began to wander; delicious
memories stole in, of walks through blossoming paths with
Malbone,--of lingering steps, half-stifled words and sentences
left unfinished;--then, alas! of passionate caresses,--other
blossoming paths that only showed the way to sin, but had never
quite led her there, she fancied. There was so much to tell,
more than could ever be explained or justified. Moment by
moment, farther and farther strayed the wandering thoughts, and
when the poor child looked in Kate's face again, the mist
between them seemed to have grown wide and dense, as if neither
eyes nor words nor hands could ever meet again. When she spoke
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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 Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: pinkish, ciliated orbit, was what seemed to be a rudimentary eye;
whilst in lieu of a tail there depended a kind of trunk or feeler
with purple annular markings, and with many evidences of being
an undeveloped mouth or throat. The limbs, save for their black
fur, roughly resembled the hind legs of prehistoric earth's giant
saurians, and terminated in ridgy-veined pads that were neither
hooves nor claws. When the thing breathed, its tail and tentacles
rhythmically changed colour, as if from some circulatory cause
normal to the non-human greenish tinge, whilst in the tail it
was manifest as a yellowish appearance which alternated with a
sickly grayish-white in the spaces between the purple rings. Of
The Dunwich Horror |
