| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: incessantly through this desert,--for the mother giving birth, for the
babe that is born, for the vice that succumbs, for the toiler who
dies, for the virgin who prays, for the old man shaking with cold, for
genius self-deluded. And a few steps off is the cemetery of Mont-
Parnasse, where, hour after hour, the sorry funerals of the faubourg
Saint-Marceau wend their way. This esplanade, which commands a view of
Paris, has been taken possession of by bowl-players; it is, in fact, a
sort of bowling green frequented by old gray faces, belonging to
kindly, worthy men, who seem to continue the race of our ancestors,
whose countenances must only be compared with those of their
surroundings.
Ferragus |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: And Rahero, the laughing and lazy, sit and rule in his place,
Here Tamatea came, and beheld the house on the brook;
And Rahero was there by the way and covered an oven to cook. (3)
Naked he was to the loins, but the tattoo covered the lack,
And the sun and the shadow of palms dappled his muscular back.
Swiftly he lifted his head at the fall of the coming feet,
And the water sprang in his mouth with a sudden desire of meat;
For he marked the basket carried, covered from flies and the sun; (4)
And Rahero buried his fire, but the meat in his house was done.
Forth he stepped; and took, and delayed the boy, by the hand;
And vaunted the joys of meat and the ancient ways of the land:
Ballads |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: process; we have reached a time when the verb and the noun are nearly
perfected, though in no language did they completely perfect themselves,
because for some unknown reason the motive powers of languages seem to have
ceased when they were on the eve of completion: they became fixed or
crystallized in an imperfect form either from the influence of writing and
literature, or because no further differentiation of them was required for
the intelligibility of language. So not without admixture and confusion
and displacement and contamination of sounds and the meanings of words, a
lower stage of language passes into a higher. Thus far we can see and no
further. When we ask the reason why this principle of analogy prevails in
all the vast domain of language, there is no answer to the question; or no
|
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 Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: station hands mustered every morning to the sound of the bell. That
morning nobody came. Kayerts turned out also, yawning. Across the yard
they saw Makola come out of his hut, a tin basin of soapy water in his
hand. Makola, a civilized nigger, was very neat in his person. He
threw the soapsuds skilfully over a wretched little yellow cur he had,
then turning his face to the agent's house, he shouted from the
distance, "All the men gone last night!"
They heard him plainly, but in their surprise they both yelled out
together: "What!" Then they stared at one another. "We are in a proper
fix now," growled Carlier. "It's incredible!" muttered Kayerts. "I
will go to the huts and see," said Carlier, striding off. Makola
Tales of Unrest |
