| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: "Turn him out of the house!" cried Captain Langford, seizing
Jervase Helwyse so roughly by the shoulder that the sacramental
cup was overturned, and its contents sprinkled upon Lady
Eleanore's mantle. "Whether knave, fool, or Bedlamite, it is
intolerable that the fellow should go at large."
"Pray, gentlemen, do my poor admirer no harm," said Lady Eleanore
with a faint and weary smile. "Take him out of my sight, if such
be your pleasure; for I can find in my heart to do nothing but
laugh at him; whereas, in all decency and conscience, it would
become me to weep for the mischief I have wrought!"
But while the by-standers were attempting to lead away the
Twice Told Tales |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: envelop them with a solicitude irresistible, familiar, and disgusting.
Days lengthened into weeks, then into months. Gobila's people drummed
and yelled to every new moon, as of yore, but kept away from the
station. Makola and Carlier tried once in a canoe to open
communications, but were received with a shower of arrows, and had to
fly back to the station for dear life. That attempt set the country up
and down the river into an uproar that could be very distinctly heard
for days. The steamer was late. At first they spoke of delay jauntily,
then anxiously, then gloomily. The matter was becoming serious. Stores
were running short. Carlier cast his lines off the bank, but the river
was low, and the fish kept out in the stream. They dared not stroll
Tales of Unrest |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: half-holiday, and bathed his children in the river. No one from
Gobila's villages came near the station that day. No one came the next
day, and the next, nor for a whole week. Gobila's people might have
been dead and buried for any sign of life they gave. But they were
only mourning for those they had lost by the witchcraft of white men,
who had brought wicked people into their country. The wicked people
were gone, but fear remained. Fear always remains. A man may destroy
everything within himself, love and hate and belief, and even doubt;
but as long as he clings to life he cannot destroy fear: the fear,
subtle, indestructible, and terrible, that pervades his being; that
tinges his thoughts; that lurks in his heart; that watches on his lips
Tales of Unrest |
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 Theaetetus by Plato: have a conception either of both objects or of one of them?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Either together or in succession?
THEAETETUS: Very good.
SOCRATES: And do you mean by conceiving, the same which I mean?
THEAETETUS: What is that?
SOCRATES: I mean the conversation which the soul holds with herself in
considering of anything. I speak of what I scarcely understand; but the
soul when thinking appears to me to be just talking--asking questions of
herself and answering them, affirming and denying. And when she has
arrived at a decision, either gradually or by a sudden impulse, and has at
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