| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: tailor who ought to be immortal. That artist certainly understood
the art of compromise, which was the moving genius of that period
of shifting politics. Is it not a rare merit to be able to take
the measure of the time? This coat, which the young men of the
present day may conceive to be fabulous, was neither civil nor
military, and might pass for civil or military by turns. Fleurs-
de-lis were embroidered on the lapels of the back skirts. The
gilt buttons also bore fleurs-de-lis; on the shoulders a pair of
straps cried out for useless epaulettes; these military
appendages were there like a petition without a recommendation.
This old gentleman's coat was of dark blue cloth, and the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: Peter Halket looked upward silently. And the stranger said: "Certain men
slept upon a plain, and the night was chill and dark. And, as they slept,
at that hour when night is darkest, one stirred. Far off to the eastward,
through his half-closed eyelids, he saw, as it were, one faint line, thin
as a hair's width, that edged the hill tops. And he whispered in the
darkness to his fellows: 'The dawn is coming.' But they, with fast-closed
eyelids murmured, 'He lies, there is no dawn.'
"Nevertheless, day broke."
The stranger was silent. The fire burnt up in red tongues of flame that
neither flickered nor flared in the still night air. Peter Halket crept
near to the stranger.
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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 Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: with care, and, after giving a call to the second mate,
returned on deck for my relief.
"Not much sign of any wind yet," I remarked when he approached.
"No, sir. Not much," he assented, sleepily, in his hoarse voice,
with just enough deference, no more, and barely suppressing a yawn.
"Well, that's all you have to look out for. You have got your orders."
"Yes, sir."
I paced a turn or two on the poop and saw him take up his position face
forward with his elbow in the ratlines of the mizzen rigging before I
went below. The mate's faint snoring was still going on peacefully.
The cuddy lamp was burning over the table on which stood a vase
The Secret Sharer |
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 Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: impossible state of human society and human morals. Let us, then, imagine a
world full of people incessantly and furiously working,-- all of whom seem
to be women. No one of these women could be persuaded or deluded into
taking a single atom of food more than is needful to maintain her strength;
and no one of them ever sleeps a second longer than is necessary to keep
her nervous system in good working-order. And all of them are so peculiarly
constituted that the least unnecessary indulgence would result in some
derangement of function.
The work daily performed by these female laborers comprises road-making,
bridge-building, timber-cutting, architectural construction of numberless
kinds, horticulture and agriculture, the feeding and sheltering of a
Kwaidan |
