| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: were not the persons, for that I knew one of the gentlemen to
be a very honest person, and of a good estate in Lancashire.
The constable who came with the hue-and-cry was immediately
informed of this, and came over to me to be satisfied from my
own mouth, and I assured him that I saw the three gentlemen
as I was at the window; that I saw them afterwards at the
windows of the room they dined in; that I saw them afterwards
take horse, and I could assure him I knew one of them to be
such a man, that he was a gentleman of a very good estate, and
an undoubted character in Lancashire, from whence I was just
now upon my journey.
Moll Flanders |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: who held the lanthorn grinned, and a trooper at a distance called
out of the darkness 'A BON CHAT BON RAT!' This brought a fresh
burst of laughter, while I stood speechless, confounded by the
stubbornness, the crassness, the insolence of the man. 'You
fool!' I cried at last, 'you fool!' And then M. de Cocheforet,
who had come out of the hut and taken his stand at my elbow,
interrupted me.
'Pardon me one moment,' he said, airily, looking at the
Lieutenant with raised eyebrows and pointing to me with his
thumb, 'but I am puzzled between you. This gentleman's name? Is
it de Berault or de Barthe?'
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: circumstances of the first discovery no suspicion attached to me,
I ventured to find the third and last scrap myself. I did not
pick it up, but I called the innkeeper, and he pounced upon it as
I have seen a hawk pounce on a chicken.
They hunted for the fourth morsel, but, of course, in vain, and
in the end they desisted, and fitted the three they had together;
but neither would let his own portion out of his hands, and each
looked at the other across the spoil with eyes of suspicion. It
was strange to see them in that wide-stretching valley, whence
grey boar-backs of hills swelled up into the silence of the snow
--it was strange, I say, in that vast solitude, to see these two,
|
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: addressing her with a politeness she did not deserve. Her plump,
knitting hands fell slowly on her knees. She said not a word while
I fixed her with severe determination. Then as I turned away from
her at last, she laid down her work gently and, with noiseless
movements, retreated from the verandah. In fact, she vanished.
But I was not thinking of her. I was looking at the girl. It was
what I was coming for daily; troubled, ashamed, eager; finding in
my nearness to her a unique sensation which I indulged with dread,
self-contempt, and deep pleasure, as if it were a secret vice bound
to end in my undoing, like the habit of some drug or other which
ruins and degrades its slave.
'Twixt Land & Sea |
