| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: They asked Kasatsky who he was.
'A servant of God.'
'Qu'est-ce qu'il dit? Il ne repond pas.'
'Il dit qu'il est un serviteur de Dieu. Cela doit etre un fils
de preetre. Il a de la race. Avez-vous de la petite monnaie?'
The Frenchman found some small change and gave twenty kopeks to
each of the pilgrims.
'Mais dites-leur que ce n'est pas pour les cierges que je leur
donne, mais pour qu'ils se regalent de the. Chay, chay pour
vous, mon vieux!' he said with a smile. And he patted Kasatsky
on the shoulder with his gloved hand.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William and Ellen Craft: kindly; but somehow I have not been able to make
it convenient to return yet; and, as the free air of
good old England agrees so well with my wife and our
dear little ones, as well as with myself, it is not at all
likely we shall return at present to the "peculiar in-
stitution" of chains and stripes.
On reaching my wife's cottage she handed me
her pass, and I showed mine, but at that time
neither of us were able to read them. It is not only
unlawful for slaves to be taught to read, but in
some of the States there are heavy penalties at-
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: went into that in detail; the peculiar effect of fear and mental
shock on a high-strung nature, especially where the physical
condition was lowered by excess and wrong-living; his early attempts,
as the boy improved, to pierce the veil, and then his slow-growing
conviction that it were an act of mercy not to do so. The
Donaldsons' faithfulness, the cessation of the search under the
conviction that Clark was dead, both were there, and also David's
growing liking for Judson himself. But David's own psychology was
interesting and clearly put.
"First of all," he dictated, in his careful old voice, "it must be
remembered that I was not certain that the boy had committed the
The Breaking Point |
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 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: who had run through, it seems, in a few years, all the eminent
degrees of a gentlewoman, a whore, and a bawd; a midwife
and a midwife-keeper, as they are called; a pawnbroker, a
childtaker, a receiver of thieves, and of thieves' purchase,
that is to say, of stolen goods; and in a word, herself a thief,
a breeder up of thieves and the like, and yet at last a penitent.
The second is the life of her transported husband, a highwayman,
who it seems, lived a twelve years' life of successful villainy
upon the road, and even at last came off so well as to be a
volunteer transport, not a convict; and in whose life there is
an incredible variety.
Moll Flanders |
