| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: became at length totally bedridden, and entirely dependent for
his comfort on the pious duties of an only daughter, his
perpetual attendant and companion.
Besides this dutiful child, the Laird's Jock had an only son,
upon whom devolved the perilous task of leading the clan to
battle, and maintaining the warlike renown of his native country,
which was now disputed by the English upon many occasions. The
young Armstrong was active, brave, and strong, and brought home
from dangerous adventures many tokens of decided success. Still,
the ancient chief conceived, as it would seem, that his son was
scarce yet entitled by age and experience to be entrusted with
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton: part in the long separation, no doubt his lack of im-
pulsiveness in not proposing elopement. There was
a priest in his company who, although he ate below
the salt and found his associates among the sailors,
could have performed the ceremony of marriage
when the Juno, under full sail in the night, was
scudding for the Russian north. It is not to be
denied that this romantic alternative appealed to
Rezanov, and had it not been for the starving
wretches so eagerly awaiting his coming he might
have been tempted to throw commercial relations to
Rezanov |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It
has resolved personal worth into exchange value. And in place of
the numberless and feasible chartered freedoms, has set up that
single, unconscionable freedom -- Free Trade. In one word, for
exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, naked,
shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.
The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation
hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has
converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the
man of science, into its paid wage labourers.
The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental
The Communist Manifesto |
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 Falk by Joseph Conrad: of Falk's square motionless shoulders under a white
hat as big as a cart-wheel, of his red face, his yel-
low staring eyes, his great beard. Instead of keep-
ing a lookout ahead, he was deliberately turning his
back on the river to glare at his tow. The tall
heavy craft, never so used before in her life, seemed
to have lost her senses; she took a wild sheer against
her helm, and for a moment came straight at us,
menacing and clumsy, like a runaway mountain.
She piled up a streaming, hissing, boiling wave
half-way up her blunt stem, my crew let out one
Falk |
