| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from To-morrow by Joseph Conrad: north there beyond the Rio Gila. I've seen it. A
prospecting engineer in Mazatlan took me along
with him to help look after the waggons. A
sailor's a handy chap to have about you anyhow.
It's all a desert: cracks in the earth that you can't
see the bottom of; and mountains--sheer rocks
standing up high like walls and church spires, only
a hundred times bigger. The valleys are full of
boulders and black stones. There's not a blade of
grass to see; and the sun sets more red over that
country than I have seen it anywhere--blood-red
To-morrow |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dreams by Olive Schreiner: VII. IN A RUINED CHAPEL.
"I cannot forgive--I love."
There are four bare walls; there is a Christ upon the walls, in red,
carrying his cross; there is a Blessed Bambino with the face rubbed out;
there is Madonna in blue and red; there are Roman soldiers and a Christ
with tied hands. All the roof is gone; overhead is the blue, blue Italian
sky; the rain has beaten holes in the walls, and the plaster is peeling
from it. The chapel stands here alone upon the promontory, and by day and
by night the sea breaks at its feet. Some say that it was set here by the
monks from the island down below, that they might bring their sick here in
times of deadly plague. Some say that it was set here that the passing
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