| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen: can call her woman, corrupted my soul. The night of the wedding
I found myself sitting in her bedroom in the hotel, listening to
her talk. She was sitting up in bed, and I listened to her as
she spoke in her beautiful voice, spoke of things which even now
I would not dare whisper in the blackest night, though I stood
in the midst of a wilderness. You, Villiers, you may think you
know life, and London, and what goes on day and night in this
dreadful city; for all I can say you may have heard the talk of
the vilest, but I tell you you can have no conception of what I
know, not in your most fantastic, hideous dreams can you have
imaged forth the faintest shadow of what I have heard--and
The Great God Pan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: to myself.
When he had cleared the platter, he got out a single pipeful of
tobacco, just as in the morning, turned round a stool into the
chimney corner, and sat awhile smoking, with his back to me.
"Davie," he said, at length, "I've been thinking;" then he
paused, and said it again. "There's a wee bit siller that I half
promised ye before ye were born," he continued; "promised it to
your father. O, naething legal, ye understand; just gentlemen
daffing at their wine. Well, I keepit that bit money separate --
it was a great expense, but a promise is a promise -- and it has
grown by now to be a matter of just precisely -- just exactly" --
Kidnapped |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: 'Now just for that, you can go and get the sounding-pole yourself.
I was going after it, but I'd see you in Halifax, now, before I'd do it.'
'Who wants you to get it? I don't. It's in the sounding-boat.'
'It ain't, either. It's been new-painted; and it's been up on the ladies'
cabin guards two days, drying.'
I flew back, and shortly arrived among the crowd of watching
and wondering ladies just in time to hear the command:
'Give way, men!'
I looked over, and there was the gallant sounding-boat booming away,
the unprincipled Tom presiding at the tiller, and my chief sitting by him
with the sounding-pole which I had been sent on a fool's errand to fetch.
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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 Astoria by Washington Irving: notions. Though some of the passengers had much to gain by the
voyage, none of them had anything positively to lose. They were
mostly young men, in the heyday of life; and having got into fine
latitudes, upon smooth seas, with a well-stored ship under them,
and a fair wind in the shoulder of the sail, they seemed to have
got into a holiday world, and were disposed to enjoy it. That
craving desire, natural to untravelled men of fresh and lively
minds, to see strange lands, and to visit scenes famous in
history or fable, was expressed by some of the partners and
clerks, with respect to some of the storied coasts and islands
that lay within their route. The captain, however, who regarded
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