| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo: himself. "If she would only get mad, anything, anything to wake
her." But she did not complain. She went through her daily
routine very humbly and quietly. She sometimes wondered how Jim
could talk so much about her work, but before she could answer
the question, her mind drifted back to other days, to a garden
and flowers, and Jim stole away unmissed, and left her with
folded hands and wide, staring eyes, gazing into the distance.
The memory of these times made Jim helpless to-night. He had
gone on hoping from day to day that Barker might not notice the
"let-down" in her work, and now the blow had fallen. How could
he tell her?
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: silence. "Throw some brushwood on the fire," he went on,
speaking to Nina, "while I watch my white friend, lest harm
should come to you or to me, O delight of my heart!"
Almayer ground his teeth and raised his arm again. With a quick
bound Dain was at his side: there was a short scuffle, during
which one chamber of the revolver went off harmlessly, then the
weapon, wrenched out of Almayer's hand, whirled through the air
and fell in the bushes. The two men stood close together,
breathing hard. The replenished fire threw out an unsteady
circle of light and shone on the terrified face of Nina, who
looked at them with outstretched hands.
Almayer's Folly |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: I came away on my own account. When a battery--a screw-gun mule
calls gun-bullocks gentlemen, he must be very badly shaken up.
Who are you fellows on the ground there?"
The gun bullocks rolled their cuds, and answered both
together: "The seventh yoke of the first gun of the Big Gun
Battery. We were asleep when the camels came, but when we were
trampled on we got up and walked away. It is better to lie quiet
in the mud than to be disturbed on good bedding. We told your
friend here that there was nothing to be afraid of, but he knew so
much that he thought otherwise. Wah!"
They went on chewing.
The Jungle Book |
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 Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: never heeded; and the mosquitoes hummed about the man like bees.
Any clean-minded man would have had the creature out at once and
buried him; and to see him, and think he was seventy, and remember
he had once commanded a ship, and come ashore in his smart togs,
and talked big in bars and consulates, and sat in club verandahs,
turned me sick and sober.
He tried to get up when I came in, but that was hopeless; so he
reached me a hand instead, and stumbled out some salutation.
"Papa's (1) pretty full this morning," observed Case. "We've had
an epidemic here; and Captain Randall takes gin for a prophylactic
- don't you, Papa?"
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