| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.
Unreal City, 60
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
The Waste Land |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Message by Honore de Balzac: or, to observe the laws of romance, this Juliette, so
passionately beloved of my traveling companion. I sketched out
ingenious answers to the questions which she might be supposed to
put to me. At every turn of a wood, in every beaten pathway, I
rehearsed a modern version of the scene in which Sosie describes
the battle to his lantern. To my shame be it said, I had thought
at first of nothing but the part that _I_ was to play, of my own
cleverness, of how I should demean myself; but now that I was in
the country, an ominous thought flashed through my soul like a
thunderbolt tearing its way through a veil of gray cloud.
What an awful piece of news it was for a woman whose whole
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: There was a hoarse, rusty little bell on the gate that gave
querulous tongue as she pushed it open. The house that sat back
in the yard was little and old and weather-beaten. Its one-story
frame had once been painted, but that was a memory remote and
traditional. A straggling morning-glory strove to conceal its
time-ravaged face. The little walk of broken bits of brick was
reddened carefully, and the one little step was scrupulously
yellow-washed, which denoted that the occupants were cleanly as
well as religious.
Manuela's timid knock was answered by a harsh "Entrez."
It was a small sombre room within, with a bare yellow-washed
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
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 Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: all those who live in touch with nature and have known want, he
was patient and could wait for hours, even days, without
growing restless or irritable. He heard his master call him,
but did not answer because he did not want to move or talk.
Though he still felt some warmth from the tea he had drunk and
from his energetic struggle when clambering about in the
snowdrift, he knew that this warmth would not last long and
that he had no strength left to warm himself again by moving
about, for he felt as tired as a horse when it stops and
refuses to go further in spite of the whip, and its master sees
that it must be fed before it can work again. The foot in the
Master and Man |
