| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Peter Pan by James M. Barrie: known, broken once by a distant lapping, which Peter explained
was the wild beasts drinking at the ford, and again by a rasping
sound that might have been the branches of trees rubbing
together, but he said it was the redskins sharpening their
knives.
Even these noises ceased. To Michael the loneliness was
dreadful. "If only something would make a sound!" he cried.
As if in answer to his request, the air was rent by the most
tremendous crash he had ever heard. The pirates had fired Long
Tom at them.
The roar of it echoed through the mountains, and the echoes
Peter Pan |
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 Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: house (which he declared to lie at a distance of not more than fifteen
versts from the boundaries of the town); and in return Chichikov
averred (with an exceedingly affable bow and a most sincere handshake)
that he was prepared not only to fulfil his friend's behest, but also
to look upon the fulfilling of it as a sacred duty. In the same way
Sobakevitch said to him laconically: "And do you pay ME a visit,"
and then proceeded to shuffle a pair of boots of such dimensions that
to find a pair to correspond with them would have been indeed
difficult--more especially at the present day, when the race of epic
heroes is beginning to die out in Russia.
[4] Priest's wife.
Dead Souls |
