| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: turned up with their ploughshares and bedewed with their blood,
undertake the pursuit of fantastic meals of salt junk and hard
tack upon the wide seas? On the kindest view it seems an
unanswerable question. Alas! I have the conviction that there
are men of unstained rectitude who are ready to murmur scornfully
the word desertion. Thus the taste of innocent adventure may be
made bitter to the palate. The part of the inexplicable should
be allowed for in appraising the conduct of men in a world where
no explanation is final. No charge of faithlessness ought to be
lightly uttered. The appearances of this perishable life are
deceptive like everything that falls under the judgment of our
 Some Reminiscences |
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 The Iliad by Homer: whereon his squires gladly stripped the armour from off his
shoulders. Then Nestor rose and spoke, "Of a truth," said he,
"the Achaean land is fallen upon evil times. The old knight
Peleus, counsellor and orator among the Myrmidons, loved when I
was in his house to question me concerning the race and lineage
of all the Argives. How would it not grieve him could he hear of
them as now quailing before Hector? Many a time would he lift his
hands in prayer that his soul might leave his body and go down
within the house of Hades. Would, by father Jove, Minerva, and
Apollo, that I were still young and strong as when the Pylians
and Arcadians were gathered in fight by the rapid river Celadon
 The Iliad |