| 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: attitude must have exasperated him at last, for he judged
it necessary to inform me he feared neither God nor devil,
let alone any mere man. I said I could see that very well,
but what I wanted was a certain quantity of rivets--and rivets
were what really Mr. Kurtz wanted, if he had only known it.
Now letters went to the coast every week. . . . `My dear sir,'
he cried, `I write from dictation.' I demanded rivets.
There was a way--for an intelligent man. He changed his manner;
became very cold, and suddenly began to talk about
a hippopotamus; wondered whether sleeping on board the steamer
(I stuck to my salvage night and day) I wasn't disturbed.
Heart of Darkness |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: made a few moments before by his superior officer. Also he realised
that his remark had been quite unnecessary, because it was a matter
of indifference to the young man, who was only obeying his employer's
orders in reporting what he had seen, whether his report was of
value or not. Muller had simply uttered aloud the thought that came
into his mind, a habit of his which years of official training had
not yet succeeded in breaking. It was annoying to himself sometimes,
for these half-formed thoughts were mere instinct - they were the
workings of his own genius that made him catch a suspicion of the
truth long before his conscious mind could reason it out or
appreciate its value. But that sort of thing was not popular in
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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 Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling: the bottom of the universe had fallen out. Perhaps Bremmil ought
to have comforted her. He tried to do so, I think; but the more he
comforted the more Mrs. Bremmil grieved, and, consequently, the
more uncomfortable Bremmil grew. The fact was that they both
needed a tonic. And they got it. Mrs. Bremmil can afford to laugh
now, but it was no laughing matter to her at the time.
You see, Mrs. Hauksbee appeared on the horizon; and where she
existed was fair chance of trouble. At Simla her bye-name was the
"Stormy Petrel." She had won that title five times to my own
certain knowledge. She was a little, brown, thin, almost skinny,
woman, with big, rolling, violet-blue eyes, and the sweetest
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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 Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: "I shall want wood for the oven," said the implacable Nanon.
"Well, take what you want," he answered sadly; "but in that case you
must make us a fruit-tart, and you'll cook the whole dinner in the
oven. In that way you won't need two fires."
"Goodness!" cried Nanon, "you needn't tell me that."
Grandet cast a look that was well-nigh paternal upon his faithful
deputy.
"Mademoiselle," she cried, when his back was turned, "we shall have
the /galette/."
Pere Grandet returned from the garden with the fruit and arranged a
plateful on the kitchen-table.
Eugenie Grandet |
