| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In Darkest England and The Way Out by General William Booth: crops, and so storing sufficient supplies of food for the future.
Then a supply of Colonists would be sent out to join them, and from
time to time other detachments, as the Colony was prepared to receive
them. Further locations could then be chosen, and more country broken
up, and before a very long period has passed the Colony would be
capable of receiving and absorbing a continuous stream of emigration of
considerable proportions.
The next work would be the establishment of a strong and efficient
government, prepared to carry out and enforce the same laws and
discipline to which the Colonists had been accustomed in England,
together with such alterations and additions as the new circumstances
In Darkest England and The Way Out |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: its journey from the tree to the ground with a similar curve. On
neither the one side nor the other is there any action by the
moving body to regulate the fall; nevertheless, the descent takes
place according to a scientific trajectory, the 'parabola,' of
which the section of a cone by a plane furnished the prototype to
the geometer's speculations. A figure, which was at first but a
tentative glimpse, becomes a reality by the fall of a pebble out of
the vertical.
The same speculations take up the parabola once more, imagine it
rolling on an indefinite straight line and ask what course does the
focus of this curve follow. The answer comes: The focus of the
The Life of the Spider |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: expeditions, shrank from that act of savage energy, and began,
instead, to hunt for excuses.
No! It was not for him to run away like an incurable who cuts his
throat. He finished dressing and looked at his own impassive face
in the saloon mirror scornfully. While being pulled on shore in
the gig, he remembered suddenly the wild beauty of a waterfall seen
when hardly more than a boy, years ago, in Menado. There was a
legend of a governor-general of the Dutch East Indies, on official
tour, committing suicide on that spot by leaping into the chasm.
It was supposed that a painful disease had made him weary of life.
But was there ever a visitation like his own, at the same time
Within the Tides |
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 Emma by Jane Austen: in every pleasure, every scheme of hers--one to whom she could speak
every thought as it arose, and who had such an affection for her
as could never find fault.
How was she to bear the change?--It was true that her friend was
going only half a mile from them; but Emma was aware that great must
be the difference between a Mrs. Weston, only half a mile from them,
and a Miss Taylor in the house; and with all her advantages,
natural and domestic, she was now in great danger of suffering
from intellectual solitude. She dearly loved her father, but he
was no companion for her. He could not meet her in conversation,
rational or playful.
Emma |
