| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: found their echo in one way or another in the letter-box, and no
one was spared, not even the grown-ups.
All our secrets, all our love-affairs, all the incidents of
our complicated life were revealed in the letter-box, and both
household and visitors were good-humoredly made fun of.
Unfortunately, much of the correspondence has been lost, but
bits of it have been preserved by some of us in copies or in
memory. I cannot recall everything interesting that there was in
it, but here are a few of the more interesting things from the
period of the eighties.
THE LETTER-BOX
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: I had expected to see a knob of wood there, you know.
I returned deliberately to the first I had seen--and there
it was, black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids--a head
that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and, with the
shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth,
was smiling, too, smiling continuously at some endless and jocose
dream of that eternal slumber.
"I am not disclosing any trade secrets. In fact, the manager said
afterwards that Mr. Kurtz's methods had ruined the district.
I have no opinion on that point, but I want you clearly to understand
that there was nothing exactly profitable in these heads being there.
Heart of Darkness |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: While she, in meek humility,
Now earns her daily bread.
It is their prayers, which never cease,
That clothe her with such grace;
Their blessing is the light of peace
That shines upon her face.
THE SLAVE IN THE DISMAL SWAMP
In dark fens of the Dismal Swamp
The hunted Negro lay;
He saw the fire of the midnight camp,
And heard at times a horse's tramp
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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 Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: are flying
XLIV. EVENSONG - The embers of the day are red
I - THE VAGABOND (To an air of Schubert)
GIVE to me the life I love,
Let the lave go by me,
Give the jolly heaven above
And the byway nigh me.
Bed in the bush with stars to see,
Bread I dip in the river -
There's the life for a man like me,
There's the life for ever.
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