| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: then in God's name, go, for I cannot bear it."
As soon as he got home, Utterson sat down and wrote to Jekyll,
complaining of his exclusion from the house, and asking the cause
of this unhappy break with Lanyon; and the next day brought him a
long answer, often very pathetically worded, and sometimes darkly
mysterious in drift. The quarrel with Lanyon was incurable. "I
do not blame our old friend," Jekyll wrote, "but I share his view
that we must never meet. I mean from henceforth to lead a life of
extreme seclusion; you must not be surprised, nor must you doubt
my friendship, if my door is often shut even to you. You must
suffer me to go my own dark way. I have brought on myself a
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
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 Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: "I will explain presently how this connection between Davidson and
that fellow came about. Now I want to tell you about the part of
this affair which happened here - the preliminaries of it.
"You know as well as I do that these tiffin-rooms where we are
sitting now have been in existence for many years. Well, next day
about twelve o'clock, Davidson dropped in here to get something to
eat.
"And here comes the only moment in this story where accident - mere
accident - plays a part. If Davidson had gone home that day for
tiffin, there would be now, after twelve years or more, nothing
changed in his kindly, placid smile.
Within the Tides |
