| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: meeting it testified to that. "I know at least what I am," he
simply went on; "the other side of the medal's clear enough. I've
not been edifying - I believe I'm thought in a hundred quarters to
have been barely decent. I've followed strange paths and
worshipped strange gods; it must have come to you again and again -
in fact you've admitted to me as much - that I was leading, at any
time these thirty years, a selfish frivolous scandalous life. And
you see what it has made of me."
She just waited, smiling at him. "You see what it has made of ME."
"Oh you're a person whom nothing can have altered. You were born
to be what you are, anywhere, anyway: you've the perfection
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: found its building occupied by the military; Changarnier, the General of
the party of Order, in whose hands was joined the supreme command of
both the National Guards and the regulars, held that day a great
military review, as though a battle were imminent; and the coalized
royalists declared threateningly to the constitutional assembly that
force would be applied if it did not act willingly. It was willing, and
chaffered only for a very short respite. What else was the 29th of
January, 1849, than the "coup d'etat" of December 2, 1851, only executed
by the royalists with Napoleon's aid against the republican National
Assembly? These gentlemen did not notice, or did not want to notice,
that Napoleon utilized the 29th of January, 1849, to cause a part of the
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome: security given by their supposed connection with religion,
have completely disappeared.
Nor can there be any question about the cold. I resented my
own sufferings less when I found that the State Departments
were no better off than other folk. Even in the Kremlin I
found the Keeper of the Archives sitting at work in an old
sheepskin coat and felt boots, rising now and then to beat
vitality into his freezing hands like a London cabman of old
times.
THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ON THE REPLY
TO THE PRINKIPO PROPOSAL
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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 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: They shouted, sang; their bodies streamed with perspiration;
they had faces like grotesque masks--these chaps; but they
had bone, muscle, a wild vitality, an intense energy of movement,
that was as natural and true as the surf along their coast.
They wanted no excuse for being there. They were a great comfort
to look at. For a time I would feel I belonged still to a world
of straightforward facts; but the feeling would not last long.
Something would turn up to scare it away. Once, I remember,
we came upon a man-of-war anchored off the coast.
There wasn't even a shed there, and she was shelling the bush.
It appears the French had one of their wars going on thereabouts.
Heart of Darkness |
