| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: her way or allowing her to fall off too far.
The deepwater sailor of to-day needs know none of these things.
And he doesn't. He pulls and hauls as he is ordered, swabs decks,
washes paint, and chips iron-rust. He knows nothing, and cares
less. Put him in a small boat and he is helpless. He will cut an
even better figure on the hurricane deck of a horse.
I shall never forget my child-astonishment when I first
encountered one of these strange beings. He was a runaway English
sailor. I was a lad of twelve, with a decked-over, fourteen-foot,
centre-board skiff which I had taught myself to sail. I sat at
his feet as at the feet of a god, while he discoursed of strange
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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 Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: tippling, perhaps. And when I forgot myself so
far as to swear at him he broke down and began to
shriek.
I don't mean to say that he made a great out-
cry. It was a cynical shrieking confession, only
faint--piteously faint. It wasn't very coherent
either, but sufficiently so to strike me dumb at first.
I turned my eyes from him in righteous indig-
nation, and perceived Captain Giles in the ve-
randah doorway surveying quietly the scene, his
own handiwork, if I may express it in that way.
The Shadow Line |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: Torrance within rose in an ecstasy. And he wondered if Torrance also
felt in his old bones the joyous influence of the spring morning;
Torrance, or the shadow of what once was Torrance, that must come so
soon to lie outside here in the sun and rain with all his rheumatisms,
while a new minister stood in his room and thundered from his own
familiar pulpit? The pity of it, and something of the chill of the
grave, shook him for a moment as he made haste to enter.
He went up the aisle reverently, and took his place in the pew with
lowered eyes, for he feared he had already offended the kind old
gentleman in the pulpit, and was sedulous to offend no further. He
could not follow the prayer, not even the heads of it. Brightnesses
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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 The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: the burning brow, "do you wish to kill me? Oh, how feverish
you are; we must not send for a notary, but for a doctor."
"A doctor?" said she, shrugging her shoulders, "I am not
ill; I am thirsty -- that is all."
"What are you drinking, dear grandmamma?"
"The same as usual, my dear, my glass is there on the table
-- give it to me, Valentine." Valentine poured the orangeade
into a glass and gave it to her grandmother with a certain
degree of dread, for it was the same glass she fancied that
had been touched by the spectre. The marchioness drained the
glass at a single draught, and then turned on her pillow,
The Count of Monte Cristo |
