| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: monkey of a Malay, who knows well enough what to do.
Why, he must have kept captain's watches in all sorts of
country ships off and on for the last five-and-twenty
years. These natives, sir, as long as they have a white
man close at the back, will go on doing the right thing
most surprisingly well--even if left quite to themselves.
Only the white man must be of the sort to put starch
into them, and the captain is just the one for that.
Why, sir, he has drilled him so well that now he needs
hardly speak at all. I have seen that little wrinkled
ape made to take the ship out of Pangu Bay on a
End of the Tether |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: how much better it would be if I knew all. You cannot hope to
get rid of me at this time of day, I have my place in the affair, I
cannot be shaken off; I am, if you will excuse a rather technical
pleasantry, an encumbrance on the estate. The actual harm I
can do, I leave you to valuate for yourself. But without going
so far, Mr. Dodd, and without in any way inconveniencing
myself, I could make things very uncomfortable. For instance,
Mr. Pinkerton's liquidation. You and I know, sir--and you
better than I--on what a large fund you draw. Is Mr. Pinkerton
in the thing at all? It was you only who knew the address, and
you were concealing it. Suppose I should communicate with
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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 Just Folks by Edgar A. Guest: Spoke of the trees and sky, and thought
Them proof of life and power divine.
There man to man we talked of trees
And birds, as people talk of men;
Discussed the busy ways of bees
Wondered what lies beyond our ken;
Where is the land no mortal sees,
And shall we come this way again.
"Out here," he told me, with a smile,
"Away from all the city's sham,
The strife for splendor and for style,
Just Folks |
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 Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: despotism so much a part of him, that it rose above his poverty.
There are violent passions which drive a man to good or evil, making
of him a hero or a convict; of these there was not one that had failed
to leave its traces on the grandly-hewn, lividly Italian face. You
trembled lest a flash of thought should suddenly light up the deep
sightless hollows under the grizzled brows, as you might fear to see
brigands with torches and poniards in the mouth of a cavern. You felt
that there was a lion in that cage of flesh, a lion spent with useless
raging against iron bars. The fires of despair had burned themselves
out into ashes, the lava had cooled; but the tracks of the flames, the
wreckage, and a little smoke remained to bear witness to the violence
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