| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: region of the first ages a man's untrammelled feet may take him
into by the way of solitude--utter solitude without a policeman--
by the way of silence--utter silence, where no warning voice
of a kind neighbour can be heard whispering of public opinion?
These little things make all the great difference.
When they are gone you must fall back upon your own
innate strength, upon your own capacity for faithfulness.
Of course you may be too much of a fool to go wrong--
too dull even to know you are being assaulted by the powers
of darkness. I take it, no fool ever made a bargain for
his soul with the devil; the fool is too much of a fool,
Heart of Darkness |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: guessed that Clym, having been home only these two or
three days, had not as yet been made acquainted with
Thomasin's painful situation with regard to Wildeve;
and seeing her living there just as she had been living
before he left home, he naturally suspected nothing.
Eustacia felt a wild jealousy of Thomasin on the instant.
Though Thomasin might possibly have tender sentiments
towards another man as yet, how long could they be expected
to last when she was shut up here with this interesting and
travelled cousin of hers? There was no knowing what affection
might not soon break out between the two, so constantly
Return of the Native |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: powerful and irreconcilable instincts, they have also inherited
and indoctrinated into them a proper mastery and subtlety for
carrying on the conflict with themselves (that is to say, the
faculty of self-control and self-deception), there then arise
those marvelously incomprehensible and inexplicable beings, those
enigmatical men, predestined for conquering and circumventing
others, the finest examples of which are Alcibiades and Caesar
(with whom I should like to associate the FIRST of Europeans
according to my taste, the Hohenstaufen, Frederick the Second),
and among artists, perhaps Leonardo da Vinci. They appear
precisely in the same periods when that weaker type, with its
Beyond Good and Evil |
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 Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: her superiority. In Paris, Dinah conquered by silence, as at Sancerre
she had conquered by loquacity. Now and then, some smart saying about
affairs, or sarcasm on an absurdity, betrayed a woman accustomed to
deal with ideas--the woman who, four years since, had given new life
to Lousteau's articles.
This phase was to the poor lawyer's hapless passion like the late
season known as the Indian summer after a sunless year. He affected to
be older than he was, to have the right to befriend Dinah without
doing her an injury, and kept himself at a distance as though he were
young, handsome, and compromising, like a man who has happiness to
conceal. He tried to keep his little attentions a profound secret, and
The Muse of the Department |
