| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: to the crossing of a street, had a moment--I won't say of hesitation,
but of startled pause, before this commonplace affair. The best
way I can explain it to you is by saying that, for a second or two,
I felt as though, instead of going to the centre of a continent,
I were about to set off for the centre of the earth.
"I left in a French steamer, and she called in every blamed
port they have out there, for, as far as I could see,
the sole purpose of landing soldiers and custom-house officers.
I watched the coast. Watching a coast as it slips by the ship
is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before you--
smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage,
Heart of Darkness |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: panting and threatening each other. In the end I planted
myself between him and the food, and told him of my
determination to begin a discipline. I divided the food in
the pantry, into rations to last us ten days. I would not
let him eat any more that day. In the afternoon he made
a feeble effort to get at the food. I had been dozing, but
in an instant I was awake. All day and all night we sat
face to face, I weary but resolute, and he weeping and com-
plaining of his immediate hunger. It was, I know, a night
and a day, but to me it seemed--it seems now--an inter-
minable length of time.
War of the Worlds |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: out of their own hands. A set of instructions for the Delegates
were put together, which in point of sense and business would have
dishonoured a schoolboy, and after being approved by a FEW, a VERY FEW
without doors, were carried into the House, and there passed
IN BEHALF OF THE WHOLE COLONY; whereas, did the whole colony know,
with what ill-will that House hath entered on some necessary public measures,
they would not hesitate a moment to think them unworthy of such a trust.
Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued
would grow into oppressions. Expedience and right are different things.
When the calamities of America required a consultation, there was no
method so ready, or at that time so proper, as to appoint persons from
Common Sense |
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 Herbert West: Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft: edifice, when from the pitch-black room we had left there burst
the most appalling and daemoniac succession of cries that either
of us had ever heard. Not more unutterable could have been the
chaos of hellish sound if the pit itself had opened to release
the agony of the damned, for in one inconceivable cacophony was
centered all the supernal terror and unnatural despair of animate
nature. Human it could not have been -- it is not in man to make
such sounds -- and without a thought of our late employment or
its possible discovery, both West and I leaped to the nearest
window like stricken animals; overturning tubes, lamp, and retorts,
and vaulting madly into the starred abyss of the rural night.
Herbert West: Reanimator |
