| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: "A completeness without a clue, and a stealthy
silence as of a neatly executed crime, characterise
this murderous disaster, which, as you may remem-
ber, had its gruesome celebrity. The wind would
have prevented the loudest outcries from reaching
the shore; there had been evidently no time for sig-
nals of distress. It was death without any sort of
fuss. The Hamburg ship, filling all at once, cap-
sized as she sank, and at daylight there was not
even the end of a spar to be seen above water. She
was missed, of course, and at first the Coastguard-
Amy Foster |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: supposed to be lost now. My young days, the days when one's
habits and character are formed, have been rather familiar with
long silences. Such voices as broke into them were anything but
conversational. No. I haven't got the habit. Yet this
discursiveness is not so irrelevant to the handful of pages which
follow. They, too, have been charged with discursiveness, with
disregard of chronological order (which is in itself a crime),
with unconventionality of form (which is an impropriety). I was
told severely that the public would view with displeasure the
informal character of my recollections. "Alas!" I protested
mildly. "Could I begin with the sacramental words, 'I was born
Some Reminiscences |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: respiration, she withdrew herself as much as possible aside,
unaffected even by the nudges Montalais gave her with her
elbow. The whole scene was a perfect enigma for Raoul, the
key to which he would have given anything to obtain. But no
one was there who could assist him, not even Malicorne; who,
a little uneasy at finding himself in the presence of so
many persons of good birth, and not a little discouraged by
Montalais's bantering glances, had described a circle, and
by degrees succeeded in getting a few paces from the prince,
behind the group of maids of honor, and nearly within reach
of Mademoiselle Aure's voice, she being the planet around
Ten Years Later |
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 To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: in his pocket and nobody bothered about him, or thought that he had
fallen over a cliff. He said aloud he thought he would be off for a
day's walk if the weather held. He had had about enough of Bankes and
of Carmichael. He would like a little solitude. Yes, she said. It
annoyed him that she did not protest. She knew that he would never do
it. He was too old now to walk all day long with a biscuit in his
pocket. She worried about the boys, but not about him. Years ago,
before he had married, he thought, looking across the bay, as they
stood between the clumps of red-hot pokers, he had walked all day. He
had made a meal off bread and cheese in a public house. He had worked
ten hours at a stretch; an old woman just popped her head in now and
To the Lighthouse |
