| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: "When I grow up I shall go THERE."
And of course I thought no more about it till after a quarter of
a century or so an opportunity offered to go there--as if the sin
of childish audacity were to be visited on my mature head. Yes.
I did go there: THERE being the region of Stanley Falls, which in
'68 was the blankest of blank spaces on the earth's figured
surface. And the MS. of "Almayer's Folly," carried about me as
if it were a talisman or a treasure, went THERE, too. That it
ever came out of THERE seems a special dispensation of
Providence, because a good many of my other properties,
infinitely more valuable and useful to me, remained behind
A Personal Record |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine and Mucedorus by William Shakespeare: The very ground doth groan for Gwendoline.
Aye, they are milder than the Brittain king,
For he rejecteth luckless Gwendoline.
THRASIMACHUS.
Sister, complaints are bootless in this cause;
This open wrong must have an open plague,
This plague must be repaid with grievous war,
This war must finish with Locrine's death;
His death will soon extinguish our complaints.
GWENDOLINE.
O no, his death will more augment my woes.
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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 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: "I thought he lived in London?"
"Well, he does. Where WOULD he live?"
"But I thought YOU lived in Sheffield?"
I see I was up a stump. I had to let on to get
choked with a chicken bone, so as to get time to think
how to get down again. Then I says:
"I mean he goes to our church regular when he's in
Sheffield. That's only in the summer time, when he
comes there to take the sea baths."
"Why, how you talk -- Sheffield ain't on the sea."
"Well, who said it was?"
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
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 The Faith of Men by Jack London: deserted Arctic City, and later came drifting back, from camp to
camp, along the Yukon. And during the long months Batard was well
lessoned. He learned many tortures, and, notably, the torture of
hunger, the torture of thirst, the torture of fire, and, worst of
all, the torture of music.
Like the rest of his kind, he did not enjoy music. It gave him
exquisite anguish, racking him nerve by nerve, and ripping apart
every fibre of his being. It made him howl, long and wolf-life, as
when the wolves bay the stars on frosty nights. He could not help
howling. It was his one weakness in the contest with Leclere, and
it was his shame. Leclere, on the other hand, passionately loved
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