| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: seemed to fade into a coloured tremble as of ascending vapour; their
steep sides were streaked with the green of narrow ravines; at their
foot lay rice-fields, plantain-patches, yellow sands. A torrent wound
about like a dropped thread. Clumps of fruit-trees marked the
villages; slim palms put their nodding heads together above the low
houses; dried palm-leaf roofs shone afar, like roofs of gold, behind
the dark colonnades of tree-trunks; figures passed vivid and
vanishing; the smoke of fires stood upright above the masses of
flowering bushes; bamboo fences glittered, running away in broken
lines between the fields. A sudden cry on the shore sounded plaintive
in the distance, and ceased abruptly, as if stifled in the downpour of
Tales of Unrest |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: wigs. Without them they would be stripped of half their
authority. The most unbending socialist is always somewhat
impressed by the sight of a prince or a marquis; and the
assumption of such titles makes the robbing of tradesmen an easy
matter.[18]
[18] The influence of titles, decorations, and uniforms on crowds
is to be traced in all countries, even in those in which the
sentiment of personal independence is the most strongly
developed. I quote in this connection a curious passage from a
recent book of travel, on the prestige enjoyed in England by
great persons.
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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 A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde: useless a child. Perhaps the most amusing thing about him was his
complete unconsciousness of his own grotesque appearance. Indeed
he seemed quite happy and full of the highest spirits. When the
children laughed, he laughed as freely and as joyously as any of
them, and at the close of each dance he made them each the funniest
of bows, smiling and nodding at them just as if he was really one
of themselves, and not a little misshapen thing that Nature, in
some humourous mood, had fashioned for others to mock at. As for
the Infanta, she absolutely fascinated him. He could not keep his
eyes off her, and seemed to dance for her alone, and when at the
close of the performance, remembering how she had seen the great
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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 Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: least disorder and confusion I believe, that can be seen anywhere
with so great a concourse of people.
Towards the latter end of the fair, and when the great hurry of
wholesale business begins to be over, the gentry come in from all
parts of the county round; and though they come for their
diversion, yet it is not a little money they lay out, which
generally falls to the share of the retailers, such as toy-shops,
goldsmiths, braziers, ironmongers, turners, milliners, mercers,
etc., and some loose coins they reserve for the puppet shows,
drolls, rope-dancers, and such like, of which there is no want,
though not considerable like the rest. The last day of the fair is
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