| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis: fringed with gray mist of the hills,
The pennons of morning advance to the music of
rock-fretted rills,
The dumb forest quickens to song, and the little
gusts shout as they fling
A floor-cloth of orchard bloom down for the flash-
ing, quick feet of the Spring.
To the road, gipsy-heart, thou and I! 'Tis the
mad piper, Spring, who is leading;
'Tis the pulse of his piping that throbs through
the brain, irresistibly pleading;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: beads. Your habit of turning round and round to the sound of
horns and tom-toms, your fondness for pigments and powders, the
way in which you love to subjugate yourself to the rich warrior
who has captured you in marriage, and the quickness with which
your taste in feathered head-dresses varies -- all these things
suggest touches of kinship; and you remember that in the fundamental
principles of your nature you are quite identical. As for you,
sir, who also laugh, let some man come and strike you in the
face whilst you are enjoying that marvellous-looking dish, and
we shall soon see how much of the savage there is in you.
There, I might go on for ever, but what is the good? Civilization
Allan Quatermain |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: an iron lantern fastened on the rocky wall. It was a
promising spot for the imagination. No boy could have left
it unexplored.
The stream thenceforward stole along the bottom of the
dingle, and made, for that dry land, a pleasant warbling in
the leaves. Once, I suppose, it ran splashing down the whole
length of the canyon, but now its head waters had been tapped
by the shaft at Silverado, and for a great part of its course
it wandered sunless among the joints of the mountain. No
wonder that it should better its pace when it sees, far
before it, daylight whitening in the arch, or that it should
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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 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: dilated nostrils quivered, the eyes stared stonily uphill.
They passed me within six inches, without a glance,
with that complete, deathlike indifference of unhappy savages.
Behind this raw matter one of the reclaimed, the product of
the new forces at work, strolled despondently, carrying a rifle
by its middle. He had a uniform jacket with one button off,
and seeing a white man on the path, hoisted his weapon
to his shoulder with alacrity. This was simple prudence,
white men being so much alike at a distance that he could
not tell who I might be. He was speedily reassured, and with
a large, white, rascally grin, and a glance at his charge,
Heart of Darkness |
