| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: Now they open upon some craggy brow, from whence they can see far
below an ocean of soft cloud, whose silver billows, girdled by the
mountain sides, hide the lowland from their sight.
And from beneath the cloud strange voices rise; the screams of
thousand night-birds, and wild howls, which they used at first to
fancy were the cries of ravenous beasts, till they found them to
proceed from nothing fiercer than an ape. But what is that deeper
note, like a series of muffled explosions,--arquebuses fired within
some subterranean cavern,--the heavy pulse of which rolls up
through the depths of the unseen forest? They hear it now for the
first time, but they will hear it many a time again; and the Indian
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: Would circle round; for then the rustic muse
Was in her glory; then would antic Mirth
Prompt them to garland head and shoulders about
With chaplets of intertwined flowers and leaves,
And to dance onward, out of tune, with limbs
Clownishly swaying, and with clownish foot
To beat our mother earth- from whence arose
Laughter and peals of jollity, for, lo,
Such frolic acts were in their glory then,
Being more new and strange. And wakeful men
Found solaces for their unsleeping hours
Of The Nature of Things |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde: day; but why to-night?
LORD WINDERMERE. I WILL tell her. I must. It would be terrible
if there were any scene. Margaret . . .
PARKER. Mrs. Erlynne!
[LORD WINDERMERE starts. MRS. ERLYNNE enters, very beautifully
dressed and very dignified. LADY WINDERMERE clutches at her fan,
then lets it drop on the door. She bows coldly to MRS. ERLYNNE,
who bows to her sweetly in turn, and sails into the room.]
LORD DARLINGTON. You have dropped your fan, Lady Windermere.
[Picks it up and hands it to her.]
MRS. ERLYNNE. [C.] How do you do, again, Lord Windermere? How
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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 Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: put upon her person; but she remembered the expressive glances
and words of Dain, and, tranquillised, she closed her eyes in a
shiver of pleasant anticipation.
There are some situations where the barbarian and the, so-called,
civilised man meet upon the same ground. It may be supposed that
Dain Maroola was not exceptionally delighted with his prospective
mother-in-law, nor that he actually approved of that worthy
woman's appetite for shining dollars. Yet on that foggy morning
when Babalatchi, laying aside the cares of state, went to visit
his fish-baskets in the Bulangi creek, Maroola had no misgivings,
experienced no feelings but those of impatience and longing, when
Almayer's Folly |
