| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: The boy--he might have been two and twenty--stared and frowned.
"Clean loco from the gas. Get him into the dory, son. I'll try
this bloody cabin again."
Kitchell turned back and descended from the poop, and Wilbur, his
arm around the boy, followed. Kitchell was already out of
hearing, and Wilbur was bracing himself upon the rolling deck,
steadying the young fellow at his side, when the latter heaved a
deep breath. His throat and breast swelled. Wilbur stared
sharply, with a muttered exclamation:
"My God, it's a girl!" he said.
IV
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Glasses by Henry James: nothing so extraordinary save the degree in which she never paid
for it. She was kept innocent, that is she was kept safe, by her
egotism, but she was helped also, though she had now put off her
mourning, by the attitude of the lone orphan who had to be a law
unto herself. It was as a lone orphan that she came and went, as a
lone orphan that she was the centre of a crush. The neglect of the
Hammond Synges gave relief to this character, and she made it worth
their while to be, as every one said, too shocking. Lord Iffield
had gone to India to shoot tigers, but he returned in time for the
punctual private view: it was he who had snapped up, as Flora
called it, the gem of the exhibition. My hope for the girl's
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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 Alcibiades I by Plato: ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And evil in respect of that in which he is unwise?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: The shoemaker, for example, is wise in respect of the making of
shoes?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then he is good in that?
ALCIBIADES: He is.
SOCRATES: But in respect of the making of garments he is unwise?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then in that he is bad?
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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 Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: of the Placid Gulf, the light on the snows, the clouds on the
sky, and for the breath of life that had to be blown into the
shapes of men and women, of Latin and Saxon, of Jew and Gentile.
These are, perhaps, strong words, but it is difficult to
characterise otherwise the intimacy and the strain of a creative
effort in which mind and will and conscience are engaged to the
full, hour after hour, day after day, away from the world, and to
the exclusion of all that makes life really lovable and gentle--
something for which a material parallel can only be found in the
everlasting sombre stress of the westward winter passage round
Cape Horn. For that too is the wrestling of men with the might
Some Reminiscences |
