| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: fires during the evening. As she approached, Babalatchi, who had
been squatting in the warm glow, rose and met her in the shadow
outside.
"Is she gone?" asked the anxious statesman, hastily.
"Yes," answered Mrs. Almayer. "What are the white men doing?
When did you leave them?"
"They are sleeping now, I think. May they never wake!" exclaimed
Babalatchi, fervently. "Oh! but they are devils, and made much
talk and trouble over that carcase. The chief threatened me
twice with his hand, and said he would have me tied up to a tree.
Tie me up to a tree! Me!" he repeated, striking his breast
Almayer's Folly |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: considerable age or stature; but they grew well together, I have
said; and as the road turned and wound among them, they fell into
pleasant groupings and broke the light up pleasantly. Sometimes
there would be a colonnade of slim, straight tree-stems with the
light running down them as down the shafts of pillars, that looked as
if it ought to lead to something, and led only to a corner of sombre
and intricate jungle. Sometimes a spray of delicate foliage would be
thrown out flat, the light lying flatly along the top of it, so that
against a dark background it seemed almost luminous. There was a
great bush over the thicket (for, indeed, it was more of a thicket
than a wood); and the vague rumours that went among the tree-tops,
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: Yet when the lamp from my expiring eyes
Shall dwindle and recede, the voice of love
Fall insignificant on my closing ears,
What sound shall come but the old cry of the wind
In our inclement city? what return
But the image of the emptiness of youth,
Filled with the sound of footsteps and that voice
Of discontent and rapture and despair?
So, as in darkness, from the magic lamp,
The momentary pictures gleam and fade
And perish, and the night resurges - these
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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 Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: children, poverty, getting tired of each other in a year or two; in
ten years, quarrels, want--hell. And in all this Princess
Márya Alexévna is perfectly right and plays the
true prophet, unless these young people who are getting married
have another purpose, their one and only one, unknown to
Princess Márya Alexévna, and that not a
brainish purpose, not one recognized by the intellect, but one
that gives life its color and the attainment of which is more
moving than any other. If you have this, good; marry at once, and
give the lie to Princess Márya Alexévna. If
not, it is a hundred to one that your marriage will lead to nothing
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