| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: mysteriously the gift came,--sometimes as if from the hand of a
former slave; sometimes as from a remorseful creditor, ashamed to
write his name. Only yellow Victorine knew; but the Doctor's
housekeeper never opened those sphinx-lips of hers, until years
after the Doctor's name had disappeared from the City Directory
...
He had grown quite thin,--a little gray. The epidemic had
burthened him with responsibilities too multifarious and
ponderous for his slender strength to bear. The continual
nervous strain of abnormally protracted duty, the perpetual
interruption of sleep, had almost prostrated even his will. Now
|
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 Youth by Joseph Conrad: and covers; it oozed here and there and everywhere in
slender threads, in an invisible film, in an incomprehen-
sible manner. It made its way into the cabin, into the
forecastle; it poisoned the sheltered places on the deck,
it could be sniffed as high as the mainyard. It was
clear that if the smoke came out the air came in. This
was disheartening. This combustion refused to be stifled.
"We resolved to try water, and took the hatches off.
Enormous volumes of smoke, whitish, yellowish, thick,
greasy, misty, choking, ascended as high as the trucks.
All hands cleared out aft. Then the poisonous cloud
Youth |
