| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: incapable. He seemed fearless of the future, and in his plans
displayed a sagacity that was only limited by his profound ignorance
of the rest of the world. We tried to enlighten him, but our attempts
to make clear the irresistible nature of the forces which he desired
to arrest failed to discourage his eagerness to strike a blow for his
own primitive ideas. He did not understand us, and replied by
arguments that almost drove one to desperation by their childish
shrewdness. He was absurd and unanswerable. Sometimes we caught
glimpses of a sombre, glowing fury within him--a brooding and vague
sense of wrong, and a concentrated lust of violence which is dangerous
in a native. He raved like one inspired. On one occasion, after we had
Tales of Unrest |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Horse's Tale by Mark Twain: chases that way, and hither and yon, scattering the nimble
banderillos in every direction like a spray, and receiving their
maddening darts in his neck as they dodge and fly - oh, but it's a
lively spectacle, and brings down the house! Ah, you should hear
the thundering roar that goes up when the game is at its wildest
and brilliant things are done!
"Oh, that first bull, that day, was great! From the moment the
spirit of war rose to flood-tide in him and he got down to his
work, he began to do wonders. He tore his way through his
persecutors, flinging one of them clear over the parapet; he bowled
a horse and his rider down, and plunged straight for the next, got
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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 Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: Iu. 'Tis but thy name that is my Enemy:
Thou art thy selfe, though not a Mountague,
What's Mountague? it is nor hand nor foote,
Nor arme, nor face, O be some other name
Belonging to a man.
What? in a names that which we call a Rose,
By any other word would smell as sweete,
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo cal'd,
Retaine that deare perfection which he owes,
Without that title Romeo, doffe thy name,
And for thy name which is no part of thee,
Romeo and Juliet |
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 Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: will think, is the sight of those puny parasites which, as it were,
connect the ages and the aeons: yet not so solemn and full of
meaning as that tiny relic of an older world, the little pear-
shaped Turbinolia (cousin of the Madrepores and Sea-anemones),
found fossil in the Suffolk Crag, and yet still lingering here and
there alive in the deep water of Scilly and the west coast of
Ireland, possessor of a pedigree which dates, perhaps, from ages
before the day in which it was said, "Let us make man in our image,
after our likeness." To think that the whole human race, its joys
and its sorrows, its virtues and its sins, its aspirations and its
failures, has been rushing out of eternity and into eternity again,
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