| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Caesar's Commentaries in Latin by Julius Caesar: clientes, pervenerant. Principibus Gallice evocatis Caesar ea quae
cognoverat dissimulanda sibi existimavit, eorumque animis permulsis et
confirmatis equitatu imperato bellum cum Germanis gerere constituit.
Re frumentaria comparata equitibusque delectis iter in ea loca facere
coepit, quibus in locis esse Germanos audiebat. A quibus cum paucorum
dierum iter abesset, legati ab iis venerunt, quorum haec fuit oratio:
Germanos neque priores populo Romano bellum inferre neque tamen recusare,
si lacessantur, quin armis contendant, quod Germanorum consuetudo [haec]
sit a maioribus tradita, Quicumque bellum inferant, resistere neque
deprecari. Haec tamen dicere venisse invitos, eiectos domo; si suam
gratiam Romani velint, posse iis utiles esse amicos; vel sibi agros
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: with which the detective listened to his remarks.
"Then your patients are all quite harmless?" asked Muller
thoughtfully, when the doctor came to a pause.
"Yes, all quite harmless. Of course, there is the man who strangely
enough considers himself the reincarnation of the famous French
murderer, the goldsmith Cardillac, who, as you remember, kept all
Paris in a fervour of excitement by his crimes during the reign of
Louis XIV. But in spite of his weird mania this man is the most
good-natured of any. He has been shut up in his room for several
days now. He was a mechanician by trade, living in Budapest, and
an unsuccessful invention turned his mind."
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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 Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: great a disgrace. I am a white man." He broke down completely
there, and went on tearfully, "I am a white man, and of good
family. Very good family," he repeated, weeping bitterly. "It
would be a disgrace . . . all over the islands, . . . the only
white man on the east coast. No, it cannot be . . . white men
finding my daughter with this Malay. My daughter!" he cried
aloud, with a ring of despair in his voice.
He recovered his composure after a while and said distinctly--
"I will never forgive you, Nina--never! If you were to come back
to me now, the memory of this night would poison all my life. I
shall try to forget. I have no daughter. There used to be a
Almayer's Folly |
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 Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: every inch of length in the pipe of an organ, deepens the note of
the impression; for what daunts the onlooker is that monstrous sum
of human suffering by which he stands surrounded. Lastly, no
doctor or nurse is called upon to enter once for all the doors of
that gehenna; they do not say farewell, they need not abandon hope,
on its sad threshold; they but go for a time to their high calling,
and can look forward as they go to relief, to recreation, and to
rest. But Damien shut-to with his own hand the doors of his own
sepulchre.
I shall now extract three passages from my diary at Kalawao.
A. "Damien is dead and already somewhat ungratefully remembered in
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