| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: materials are naught; and I hope you will henceforth take warning,
and consider duration and matter, as well as method and art. You
boast, indeed, of being obliged to no other creature, but of
drawing and spinning out all from yourself; that is to say, if we
may judge of the liquor in the vessel by what issues out, you
possess a good plentiful store of dirt and poison in your breast;
and, though I would by no means lesson or disparage your genuine
stock of either, yet I doubt you are somewhat obliged, for an
increase of both, to a little foreign assistance. Your inherent
portion of dirt does not fall of acquisitions, by sweepings exhaled
from below; and one insect furnishes you with a share of poison to
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: to a seaman struck my eye, vividly in that instant.
For the rest, I saw her disengaged from the material
conditions of her being. The shore to which she
was moored was as if it did not exist. What were
to me all the countries of the globe? In all the
parts of the world washed by navigable waters our
relation to each other would be the same--and
more intimate than there are words to express in
the language. Apart from that, every scene and
episode would be a mere passing show. The very
gang of yellow coolies busy about the main hatch
The Shadow Line |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an
observable change came over the features of the mental disorder
of my friend. His ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary
occupations were neglected or forgotten. He roamed from chamber
to chamber with hurried, unequal, and objectless step. The
pallor of his countenance had assumed, if possible, a more
ghastly hue--but the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone
out. The once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no
more; and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually
characterized his utterance. There were times, indeed, when I
thought his unceasingly agitated mind was labouring with some
The Fall of the House of Usher |
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 Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: wool, leather, peaks, ear-flaps, tassels, with a picturesque
round beret or two pulled down over the brows; and one
grandfather, with a shaved, bony face and a great beak of a nose,
had a cloak with a hood which made him look in our midst like a
cowled monk being carried off goodness knows where by that silent
company of seamen--quiet enough to be dead.
My fingers itched for the tiller and in due course my friend, the
patron, surrendered it to me in the same spirit in which the
family coachman lets a boy hold the reins on an easy bit of road.
There was a great solitude around us; the islets ahead, Monte
Cristo and the Chateau d'If in full light, seemed to float
Some Reminiscences |
