| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: a Dutch trading-house on the coast to fit him out with stores
and goods, and had started for the interior with a light heart
and no more idea of what would happen to him than a baby.
He had been wandering about that river for nearly two
years alone, cut off from everybody and everything.
`I am not so young as I look. I am twenty-five,' he said.
`At first old Van Shuyten would tell me to go to the devil,'
he narrated with keen enjoyment; `but I stuck to him,
and talked and talked, till at last he got afraid I would
talk the hind-leg off his favourite dog, so he gave me some
cheap things and a few guns, and told me he hoped he would
Heart of Darkness |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: jedgment fer our iniquities, that no mortal kin ever set aside.'
Armitage saw that the time for positive action had come, and
spoke decisively to the faltering group of frightened rustics.
'We must follow it, boys.' He made his voice as reassuring as
possible. 'I believe there's a chance of putting it out of business.
You men know that those Whateleys were wizards - well, this thing
is a thing of wizardry, and must be put down by the same means.
I've seen Wilbur Whateley's diary and read some of the strange
old books he used to read; and I think I know the right kind of
spell to recite to make the thing fade away. Of course, one can't
be sure, but we can always take a chance. It's invisible - I knew
The Dunwich Horror |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: left the two children, as he called Charles and Eugenie, free to
conduct themselves as they pleased, under the eye of Madame Grandet,
in whom he had implicit confidence as to all that concerned public and
religious morality. He busied himself in straightening the boundaries
of his fields and ditches along the high-road, in his poplar-
plantations beside the Loire, in the winter work of his vineyards, and
at Froidfond. All these things occupied his whole time.
For Eugenie the springtime of love had come. Since the scene at night
when she gave her little treasure to her cousin, her heart had
followed the treasure. Confederates in the same secret, they looked at
each other with a mutual intelligence which sank to the depth of their
Eugenie Grandet |
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 Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: Who heard his message kind, with gentle grace,
Which told, he left him tossing in his thought
A thousand doubts, and turned his speedy pace
To bring his lady and his mistress word,
She might be welcome to that courteous lord.
CII
But she, impatient, to whose desire
Grievous and harmful seemed each little stay,
Recounts his steps, and thinks, now draws he nigher,
Now enters in, now speaks, now comes his way;
And that which grieved her most, the careful squire
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