| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: actor of standing may take a small part in the benefit
performance of a friend.
As far as my feelings were concerned I did not wish to be in that
steamer at that time and in those circumstances. And perhaps I
was not even wanted there in the usual sense in which a ship
"wants" an officer. It was the first and last instance in my sea
life when I served ship-owners who have remained completely
shadowy to my apprehension. I do not mean this for the well-
known firm of London ship-brokers which had chartered the ship to
the, I will not say short-lived, but ephemeral Franco-Canadian
Transport Company. A death leaves something behind, but there
Some Reminiscences |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: to express good cheer and good humour, than tenderness and sentiment;
and while the agitations of Anne's slender form, and pensive face,
may be considered as very completely screened, Captain Wentworth
should be allowed some credit for the self-command with which
he attended to her large fat sighings over the destiny of a son,
whom alive nobody had cared for.
Personal size and mental sorrow have certainly no necessary proportions.
A large bulky figure has as good a right to be in deep affliction,
as the most graceful set of limbs in the world. But, fair or not fair,
there are unbecoming conjunctions, which reason will patronize in vain--
which taste cannot tolerate--which ridicule will seize.
Persuasion |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: see a new, an unknown Fyne.
"You wouldn't believe it," he went on, "but she looks upon her
father exclusively as a victim. I don't know," he burst out
suddenly through an enormous rent in his solemnity, "if she thinks
him absolutely a saint, but she certainly imagines him to be a
martyr."
It is one of the advantages of that magnificent invention, the
prison, that you may forget people which are put there as though
they were dead. One needn't worry about them. Nothing can happen
to them that you can help. They can do nothing which might possibly
matter to anybody. They come out of it, though, but that seems
Chance |
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 The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: hurriedly up and down.
"You have been very imprudent," said the merchant. "Why send Brigitte
to buy those provisions?"
"But he may arrive half-dead with hunger, exhausted, and--"
She could say no more.
"I am sure of my brother the mayor," said the old man. "I will see him
at once, and put him in your interests."
After talking with the mayor, the shrewd old man made visits on
various pretexts to the principal families of Carentan, to all of whom
he mentioned that Madame de Dey, in spite of her illness, would
receive her friends that evening. Matching his own craft against those
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