| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Riverman by Stewart Edward White: latter had lingered in hopes of rescuing his peavy, which had gone
overboard. To lose one's peavy is, among rivermen, the most
mortifying disgrace. Consequently, the Rough Red was in a fit mood
for trouble. He attacked the two single-handed. A desperate battle
ensued, which lasted upward of an hour. The two rivermen punched,
kicked, and battered the Rough Red in a manner to tear his clothes,
deprive him to some extent of red whiskers, bloody his face, cut his
shoulder, and knock loose two teeth. The Rough Red, more than the
equal of either man singly, had reciprocated in kind. Orde, driving
in toward the rear from a detour to avoid a swamp, heard, and
descended from his buckboard. Tying his horses to trees, he made
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: meditatively.
Ralph nearly tore the page from her hand in shame and despair when he
saw her actually contemplating the idiotic symbol of his most confused
and emotional moments.
He was convinced that it could mean nothing to another, although
somehow to him it conveyed not only Katharine herself but all those
states of mind which had clustered round her since he first saw her
pouring out tea on a Sunday afternoon. It represented by its
circumference of smudges surrounding a central blot all that
encircling glow which for him surrounded, inexplicably, so many of the
objects of life, softening their sharp outline, so that he could see
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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 Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: "I trust there are," said Aunt Jane. "Perhaps I was intended
to be born in one of them, and that is why my housekeeping
accounts never add up."
Here hope was called away, and Emilia saucily murmured, "Sour
grapes!"
"Not a bit of it!" cried Kate, indignantly. "Hope might have
anything in society she wishes, if she would only give up some
of her own plans, and let me choose her dresses, and her rich
uncles pay for them. Count Posen told me, only yesterday, that
there was not a girl in Oldport with such an air as hers."
"Not Kate herself?" said Emilia, slyly.
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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 Odyssey by Homer: Troy, and many were the men whose towns he saw and whose
mind he learnt, yea, and many the woes he suffered in his
heart upon the deep, striving to win his own life and the
return of his company. Nay, but even so he saved not his
company, though he desired it sore. For through the
blindness of their own hearts they perished, fools, who
devoured the oxen of Helios Hyperion: but the god took from
them their day of returning. Of these things, goddess,
daughter of Zeus, whencesoever thou hast heard thereof,
declare thou even unto us.
Now all the rest, as many as fled from sheer destruction,
The Odyssey |
