| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: I nodded, but he was not looking at me.
"Never laughed so much in my life. The beggar - would make you
laugh telling you how he skinned his own father. He was up to
that, too. A man who's been in the patent-medicine trade will be
up to anything from pitch-and-toss to wilful murder. And that's a
bit of hard truth for you. Don't mind what they do - think they
can carry off anything and talk themselves out of anything - all
the world's a fool to them. Business man, too, Cloete. Came over
with a few hundred pounds. Looking for something to do - in a
quiet way. Nothing like the old country, after all, says he. . .
And so we part - I with more drinks in me than I was used to.
Within the Tides |
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 Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: clean white cambrick handkerchief beside it:--The youth was just stooping
down to take up the cushion, upon which I supposed he had been kneeling,--
the book was laid upon the bed,--and, as he rose, in taking up the cushion
with one hand, he reached out his other to take it away at the same time.--
Let it remain there, my dear, said the lieutenant.
He did not offer to speak to me, till I had walked up close to his bed-
side:--If you are captain Shandy's servant, said he, you must present my
thanks to your master, with my little boy's thanks along with them, for his
courtesy to me;--if he was of Levens's--said the lieutenant.--I told him
your honour was--Then, said he, I served three campaigns with him in
Flanders, and remember him,--but 'tis most likely, as I had not the honour
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