| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: v. 119. Ganellon.] The betrayer of Charlemain, mentioned by
Archbishop Turpin. He is a common instance of treachery with the
poets of the middle ages.
Trop son fol e mal pensant,
Pis valent que Guenelon.
Thibaut, roi de Navarre
O new Scariot, and new Ganilion,
O false dissembler, &c.
Chaucer, Nonne's Prieste's Tale
And in the Monke's Tale, Peter of Spaine.
v. 119. Tribaldello.] Tribaldello de'Manfredi, who was bribed
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson: Till as I gaze with staring eyes,
The armies fall, the lustre dies.
Then once again the glow returns;
Again the phantom city burns;
And down the red-hot valley, lo!
The phantom armies marching go!
Blinking embers, tell me true
Where are those armies marching to,
And what the burning city is
That crumbles in your furnaces!
IX
A Child's Garden of Verses |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: whose ideas and advice they followed on all occasions. Monsieur
Julliard, the eldest son of the old merchant, who had married the only
daughter of a rich farmer, set up a sudden, secret, and disinterested
passion for Madame Tiphaine, that angel descended from the Parisian
skies. The clever Melanie, too clever to involve herself with
Julliard, but quite capable of keeping him in the condition of Amadis
and making the most of his folly, advised him to start a journal,
intending herself to play the part of Egeria. For the last two years,
therefore, Julliard, possessed by his romantic passion, had published
the said newspaper, called the "Bee-hive," which contained articles
literary, archaeological, and medical, written in the family. The
|
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 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: Then I nearly fell into a very narrow ravine, almost no
more than a scar in the hillside. I discovered that a lot
of imported drainage-pipes for the settlement had been
tumbled in there. There wasn't one that was not broken.
It was a wanton smash-up. At last I got under the trees.
My purpose was to stroll into the shade for a moment;
but no sooner within than it seemed to me I had stepped into
the gloomy circle of some Inferno. The rapids were near,
and an uninterrupted, uniform, headlong, rushing noise filled
the mournful stillness of the grove, where not a breath stirred,
not a leaf moved, with a mysterious sound--as though the tearing
Heart of Darkness |
