| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Falk by Joseph Conrad: years. But in our Consulate (where I arrived drip-
ping after a sharp walk) they could tell me noth-
ing. The excellent young men on the staff, though
willing to help me, belonged to a sphere of the
white colony for which that sort of Johnson does
not exist. Their suggestion was that I should hunt
the man up myself with the help of the Consulate's
constable--an ex-sergeant-major of a regiment of
Hussars.
This man, whose usual duty apparently consisted
in sitting behind a little table in an outer room
Falk |
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 Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: call; get the same answer; leave another card. So for five or six,
- sometimes ten years or more. At last, if they don't let me in, I
break in through the front door or the windows.
We talked together in this way some time. Then Old Age said again,
- Come, let us walk down the street together, - and offered me a
cane, an eyeglass, a tippet, and a pair of over-shoes. - No, much
obliged to you, said I. I don't want those things, and I had a
little rather talk with you here, privately, in my study. So I
dressed myself up in a jaunty way and walked out alone; - got a
fall, caught a cold, was laid up with a lumbago, and had time to
think over this whole matter.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
