| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: Archipelago which I certainly hoped to see again. The story of
"Almayer's Folly" got put away under the pillow for that day. I
do not know that I had any occupation to keep me away from it;
the truth of the matter is that on board that ship we were
leading just then a contemplative life. I will not say anything
of my privileged position. I was there "just to oblige," as an
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
A Personal Record |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: suggest to them to organize in my house something like a
committee or a centre to which all subscriptions could be
forwarded, and from which assistance and instructions could be
distributed throughout the district; such an organization, which
would render possible frequent consultations and free control on
a big scale, would completely meet my views. But I imagined the
lunches, the dinners, the suppers and the noise, the waste of
time, the verbosity and the bad taste which that mixed provincial
company would inevitably bring into my house, and I made haste to
reject my idea.
As for the members of my own household, the last thing I could
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: Augustine, I must deny my own conscience, my own reason, I must outrage
my own moral sense, and confess that I have no immutable standard of
right, that I know no eternal source of right, if I deny it to have been
one; if I deny what seems to me the palpable historic fact, that those
wild Koreish had in them a reason and a conscience, which could awaken
to that message, and perceive its boundless beauty, its boundless
importance, and that they did accept that message, and lived by it in
proportion as they received it fully, such lives as no men in those
times, and few in after times, have been able to live. If I feel, as I
do feel, that Abubekr, Omar, Abu Obeidah, and Amrou, were better men
than I am, I must throw away all that Philo--all that a Higher
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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 The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: the Lord." Memoirs, pp. 14-16, abridged.
"I had said I would not give up; but when my will was broken, it
was all over," writes one of Starbuck's correspondents.-- Another
says: "I simply said: 'Lord, I have done all I can; I leave the
whole matter with Thee,' and immediately there came to me a great
peace."--Another: "All at once it occurred to me that I might be
saved, too, if I would stop trying to do it all myself, and
follow Jesus: somehow I lost my load."--Another: "I finally
ceased to resist, and gave myself up, though it was a hard
struggle. Gradually the feeling came over me that I had done my
part, and God was willing to do his."[111]--"Lord Thy will be
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