| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: He was no longer Edgar Byrne. He was a tortured soul suffering
more anguish than any sinner's body had ever suffered from rack or
boot. The depth of his torment may be measured when I say that
this young man, as brave at least as the average of his kind,
contemplated seizing a pistol and firing into his own head. But a
deadly, chilly, langour was spreading over his limbs. It was as if
his flesh had been wet plaster stiffening slowly about his ribs.
Presently, he thought, the two witches will be coming in, with
crutch and stick - horrible, grotesque, monstrous - affiliated to
the devil - to put a mark on his forehead, the tiny little bruise
of death. And he wouldn't be able to do anything. Tom had struck
Within the Tides |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: Of the two fans and fairy Rosabelle.
Hot was the day; her weary sire and I
Sat in our chairs companionably nigh,
Each with a headache sat her sire and I.
Instant the hostess waked: she viewed the scene,
Divined the giants' languor by their mien,
And with hospitable care
Tackled at once an Atlantean chair.
Her pigmy stature scarce attained the seat -
She dragged it where she would, and with her feet
Surmounted; thence, a Phaeton launched, she crowned
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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 Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare: He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
No want of conscience hold it that I call
Her 'love,' for whose dear love I rise and fall.
CLII
In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,
But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing;
In act thy bed-vow broke, and new faith torn,
In vowing new hate after new love bearing:
But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,
When I break twenty? I am perjur'd most;
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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 The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: relieved by a remedy which the famous doctor, Tronchin, had once
recommended to her,--namely, to apply the skin of a freshly-flayed
hare on the pit of the stomach, and to remain in bed without making
the slightest movement for two days. This tale had prodigious success,
and the doctor of Carentan, a royalist "in petto," increased its
effect by the manner in which he discussed the remedy.
Nevertheless, suspicions had taken too strong a root in the minds of
some obstinate persons, and a few philosophers, to be thus dispelled;
so that all Madame de Dey's usual visitors came eagerly and early that
evening to watch her countenance: some out of true friendship, but
most of them to detect the secret of her seclusion.
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