| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: find on a map, and more squalid than the most poverty-stricken
Malay settlement had a right to be, this European woman coming
swishing out of the long grass in a fanciful tea-gown thing, dingy
pink satin, with a long train and frayed lace trimmings; her eyes
like black coals in a pasty-white face. Davidson thought that he
was asleep, that he was delirious. From the offensive village
mudhole (it was what Davidson had sniffed just before) a couple of
filthy buffaloes uprose with loud snorts and lumbered off crashing
through the bushes, panic-struck by this apparition.
"The woman came forward, her arms extended, and laid her hands on
Davidson's shoulders, exclaiming: 'Why! You have hardly changed
Within the Tides |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: The world is not thy friend, nor the worlds law:
The world affords no law to make thee rich.
Then be not poore, but breake it, and take this
App. My pouerty, but not my will consents
Rom. I pray thy pouerty, and not thy will
App. Put this in any liquid thing you will
And drinke it off, and if you had the strength
Of twenty men, it would dispatch you straight
Rom. There's thy Gold,
Worse poyson to mens soules,
Doing more murther in this loathsome world,
Romeo and Juliet |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: THE VANISHING
They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway-share;
They charmed it with smiles and soap.
They shuddered to think that the chase might fail,
And the Beaver, excited at last,
Went bounding along on the tip of its tail,
For the daylight was nearly past.
"There is Thingumbob shouting!" the Bellman said,
"He is shouting like mad, only hark!
The Hunting of the Snark |
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 Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: And that was all I got in the way of a wigging. I waited a little
while and then went out, shutting carefully the door of the state-
room after me.
Well, I have loved, lived with, and left the sea without ever
seeing a ship's tall fabric of sticks, cobwebs and gossamer go by
the board. Sheer good luck, no doubt. But as to poor P-, I am
sure that he would not have got off scot-free like this but for the
god of gales, who called him away early from this earth, which is
three parts ocean, and therefore a fit abode for sailors. A few
years afterwards I met in an Indian port a man who had served in
the ships of the same company. Names came up in our talk, names of
The Mirror of the Sea |
