| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: In the immutability of their surroundings the foreign shores,
the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life, glide past,
veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance;
for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself,
which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny.
For the rest, after his hours of work, a casual stroll or a casual
spree on shore suffices to unfold for him the secret of a whole
continent, and generally he finds the secret not worth knowing.
The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning
of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was
not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him
 Heart of Darkness |
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 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: go to sea." I rose and stood near her chair. "But I shall often
think of you in this old garden, passing under the trees over
there, walking between these gorgeous flower-beds. You must love
this garden - "
"I love nothing."
I heard in her sullen tone the faint echo of that resentfully
tragic note which I had found once so provoking. But it left me
unmoved except for a sudden and weary conviction of the emptiness
of all things under Heaven.
"Good-bye, Alice," I said.
She did not answer, she did not move. To merely take her hand,
 'Twixt Land & Sea |