| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: into earnest consideration. He was of a painstaking turn of mind.
As he used to say, he "liked to account to himself" for practically
everything that came in his way, down to a miserable scorpion
he had found in his cabin a week before. The why and the wherefore
of that scorpion--how it got on board and came to select his room
rather than the pantry (which was a dark place and more what a scorpion
would be partial to), and how on earth it managed to drown itself
in the inkwell of his writing desk--had exercised him infinitely.
The ship within the islands was much more easily accounted for;
and just as we were about to rise from table he made his pronouncement.
She was, he doubted not, a ship from home lately arrived. Probably she
The Secret Sharer |
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 Republic by Plato: person--the tyrannical man, I mean--whom you just now decided to be the
most miserable of all--will not he be yet more miserable when, instead of
leading a private life, he is constrained by fortune to be a public tyrant?
He has to be master of others when he is not master of himself: he is like
a diseased or paralytic man who is compelled to pass his life, not in
retirement, but fighting and combating with other men.
Yes, he said, the similitude is most exact.
Is not his case utterly miserable? and does not the actual tyrant lead a
worse life than he whose life you determined to be the worst?
Certainly.
He who is the real tyrant, whatever men may think, is the real slave, and
The Republic |
