| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: and locked, with the cargo of the launch piled outside it, and at
the corner we came to a small doorway I had not previously observed.
The white-haired man produced a bundle of keys from the pocket
of his greasy blue jacket, opened this door, and entered.
His keys, and the elaborate locking-up of the place even while it
was still under his eye, struck me as peculiar. I followed him,
and found myself in a small apartment, plainly but not uncomfortably
furnished and with its inner door, which was slightly ajar, opening into
a paved courtyard. This inner door Montgomery at once closed.
A hammock was slung across the darker corner of the room, and a
small unglazed window defended by an iron bar looked out towards
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
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 Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: escaped her lips, one by one,--all different in tone and accent, but
all melodious, full of a Goodness that seemed to emanate from her head
in vaporous waves, like the gleams the goddess chastely lays upon
Endymion sleeping.
"I cannot show myself such as I am to thee, dear Wilfrid,--to thee who
art strong.
"The hour is come; the hour when the effulgent lights of the future
cast their reflections backward on the soul; the hour when the soul
awakes into freedom.
"Now am I permitted to tell thee how I love thee. Dost thou not see
the nature of my love, a love without self-interest; a sentiment full
Seraphita |
