| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: childbirth grew stronger and keener. A presentiment of murder, joined
to the fatigue of her efforts, overcame her last remaining strength.
She was like a shipwrecked man who sinks, borne under by one last wave
less furious than others he has vanquished. The bewildering pangs of
her condition kept her from knowing the lapse of time. At the moment
when she felt that, alone, without help, she was about to give birth
to her child, and to all her other terrors was added that of the
accidents to which her ignorance exposed her, the count appeared,
without a sound that let her know of his arrival. The man was there,
like a demon claiming at the close of a compact the soul that was sold
to him. He muttered angrily at finding his wife's face uncovered; then
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: eastern fastness of the isle; walked by paths known only to
herself upon the mountains; was courted by dangerous suitors
who came swimming from adjacent islands, and defended and
rescued (as I gather) by the loyalty of native fish. My
anxiety to learn more of "Ahupu Vehine" became (during my
stay in Taiarapu) a cause of some diversion to that mirthful
people, the inhabitants.
Note 3, "COVERED AN OVEN." The cooking fire is made in a
hole in the ground, and is then buried.
Note 4, "FLIES." This is perhaps an anachronism. Even
speaking of to-day in Tahiti, the phrase would have to be
Ballads |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: Station. Yes, it's all right: Eric has got his commission; and, now
that he has arranged matters with Muriel, he has business in town that
must be seen to at once."
"What arrangement do you mean?" I asked with a sinking heart, as the
thought of Arthur's crushed hopes came to my mind. "Do you mean that
they are engaged?"
"They have been engaged--in a sense--for two years," the old man gently
replied:
"that is, he has had my promise to consent to it, so soon as he could
secure a permanent and settled line in life. I could never be happy
with my child married to a man without an object to live for--without
Sylvie and Bruno |
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: Lying on the couch, he stared through the open shutter.
There was an eddy in the mass of human bodies, and the woman
with helmeted head and tawny cheeks rushed out to the very brink
of the stream. She put out her hands, shouted something,
and all that wild mob took up the shout in a roaring chorus
of articulated, rapid, breathless utterance.
"`Do you understand this?' I asked.
"He kept on looking out past me with fiery, longing eyes, with a
mingled expression of wistfulness and hate. He made no answer,
but I saw a smile, a smile of indefinable meaning, appear on
his colourless lips that a moment after twitched convulsively.
Heart of Darkness |
