| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: miserably pathetic in a certain smile, a certain sodden aspect of
invitation on such faces. It is so terrible, that it is in a way
sacred; it means the outside of degradation and (what is worst of
all in life) false position. I hope you understand me rightly. -
Ever your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
[EDINBURGH], TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1873.
MY father has returned in better health, and I am more delighted
than I can well tell you. The one trouble that I can see no way
through is that his health, or my mother's, should give way. To-
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Reign of King Edward the Third by William Shakespeare: Love cannot sound well but in lover's tongues;
Give me the pen and paper, I will write.
[Enter Countess.]
But soft, here comes the treasurer of my spirit.--
Lodowick, thou knowst not how to draw a battle;
These wings, these flankers, and these squadrons
Argue in thee defective discipline:
Thou shouldest have placed this here, this other here.
COUNTESS.
Pardon my boldness, my thrice gracious Lords;
Let my intrusion here be called my duty,
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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 Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: grand-master of the household, now held, as we have already said, by
the Duc de Guise.
"Do you think that the Duc de Nemours will marry Francoise?" said
Madame de Guise to the tutor of the Duc d'Orleans.
"Ah, madame," he replied, "I know nothing but Latin."
This answer made all who were within hearing of it smile. The
seduction of Francoise de Rohan by the Duc de Nemours was the topic of
all conversations; but, as the duke was cousin to Francois II., and
doubly allied to the house of Valois through his mother, the Guises
regarded him more as the seduced than the seducer. Nevertheless, the
power of the house of Rohan was such that the Duc de Nemours was
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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 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: and monstrous passions. This alone, I was convinced,
had driven him out to the edge of the forest, to the bush,
towards the gleam of fires, the throb of drums, the drone
of weird incantations; this alone had beguiled his unlawful soul
beyond the bounds of permitted aspirations. And, don't you see,
the terror of the position was not in being knocked on the head--
though I had a very lively sense of that danger, too--but in this,
that I had to deal with a being to whom I could not appeal in
the name of anything high or low. I had, even like the niggers,
to invoke him--himself--his own exalted and incredible degradation.
There was nothing either above or below him, and I knew it.
Heart of Darkness |
