| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: delusions, acquired the characteristics of delirium tremens. He
positively saw snakes now. He saw the woman twined round him like
a snake, not to be shaken off. She was not deadly. She was death
itself - the companion of life.
Mrs Verloc, as if relieved by the outburst, was very far from
behaving noisily now. She was pitiful.
"Tom, you can't throw me off now," she murmured from the floor.
"Not unless you crush my head under your heel. I won't leave you."
"Get up," said Ossipon.
His face was so pale as to be quite visible in the profound black
darkness of the shop; while Mrs Verloc, veiled, had no face, almost
The Secret Agent |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: merely, but in that of humanity; and that the Church was combating
in her own cause, and that of her power and privilege. The Church
replied that she, too, was combating for humanity; for its moral and
eternal well-being. But that is just what the philosophes denied.
They said (and it is but fair to take a statement which appears on
the face of all their writings; which is the one key-note on which
they ring perpetual changes), that the cause of the Church in France
was not that of humanity, but of inhumanity; not that of nature, but
of unnature; not even that of grace, but of disgrace. Truely or
falsely, they complained that the French clergy had not only
identified themselves with the repression of free thought, and of
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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 Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: >From the foot of the plinth rang the voice of the students making
chorus to Le Chapelier, who was bidding Andre-Louis to seek shelter.
"Come down! Come down at once! They'll murder you as they murdered
La Riviere."
"Let them!" He flung wide his arms in a gesture supremely theatrical,
and laughed. "I stand here at their mercy. Let them, if they will,
add mine to the blood that will presently rise up to choke them.
Let them assassinate me. It is a trade they understand. But until
they do so, they shall not prevent me from speaking to you, from
telling you what is to be looked for in them." And again he laughed,
not merely in exaltation as they supposed who watched him from below,
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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 De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: I was. As soon as they had been informed they laughed still more.
For half an hour I stood there in the grey November rain surrounded
by a jeering mob.
For a year after that was done to me I wept every day at the same
hour and for the same space of time. That is not such a tragic
thing as possibly it sounds to you. To those who are in prison
tears are a part of every day's experience. A day in prison on
which one does not weep is a day on which one's heart is hard, not
a day on which one's heart is happy.
Well, now I am really beginning to feel more regret for the people
who laughed than for myself. Of course when they saw me I was not
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