| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: be stamped upon, but the very thoroughness of the operation,
implying not only a careful reading, but some real insight into
work whose qualities and defects, whatever they may be, are not
so much on the surface, is something to be thankful for in view
of the fact that it may happen to one's work to be condemned
without being read at all. This is the most fatuous adventure
that can well happen to a writer venturing his soul amongst
criticisms. It can do one no harm, of course, but it is
disagreeable. It is disagreeable in the same way as discovering
a three-card-trick man amongst a decent lot of folk in a third-
class compartment. The open impudence of the whole transaction,
Some Reminiscences |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Salome by Oscar Wilde: flambeaux. Apportez les tables d'ivoire, et les tables de jaspe.
L'air ici est delicieux. Je boirai encore du vin avec mes hotes.
Aux ambassadeurs de Cesar il faut faire tout honneur.
HERODIAS. Ce n'est pas e cause d'eux que vous restez.
HERODE. Oui, l'air est delicieux. Viens, Herodias, nos hotes nous
attendent. Ah! j'ai glisse! j'ai glisse dans le sang! C'est d'un
mauvais presage. C'est d'un tres mauvais presage. Pourquoi y a-t-
il du sang ici? . . . Et ce cadavre? Que fait ici ce cadavre?
Pensez-vous que je sois comme le roi d'Egypte qui ne donne jamais un
festin sans montrer un cadavre e ses hotes? Enfin, qui est-ce? Je
ne veux pas le regarder.
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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 The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: "I will remember thee in my next kill, and put aside the head for
thee alone, O best of kites!"
"It is nothing. It is nothing. The boy held the Master Word.
I could have done no less," and Rann circled up again to his
roost.
"He has not forgotten to use his tongue," said Baloo with a
chuckle of pride. "To think of one so young remembering the
Master Word for the birds too while he was being pulled across
trees!"
"It was most firmly driven into him," said Bagheera. "But I
am proud of him, and now we must go to the Cold Lairs."
The Jungle Book |
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 Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: intellectual outlook on life. But your sociologic judgments are vitiated by
your lack of practical knowledge. Now I, who know the books, pardon me,
somewhat better than you, know life, too. I have lived it, naked, taken it up
in both my hands and looked at it, and tasted it, the flesh and the blood of
it, and, being purely an intellectual, I have been biased by neither passion
nor prejudice. All of which is necessary for clear concepts, and all of which
you lack. Ah! a really clever passage. Listen!"
And he read aloud to me in his remarkable style, paralleling the text with a
running criticism and commentary, lucidly wording involved and lumbering
periods, casting side and cross lights upon the subject, introducing points
the author had blundered past and objections he had ignored, catching up lost
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