| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: want to know how you REALLY felt. Were you scared or nervous? or
did you become cool? Tell me frankly just how it was, so I can
see the thing as happening to a common everyday human being.
Then, even at second-hand and at ten thousand miles distance, I
can enjoy it actually, humanly, even though vicariously,
speculating a bit over my pipe as to how I would have liked it
myself.
Obviously, to write such a book the author must at the same time
sink his ego and exhibit frankly his personality. The paradox in
this is only apparent. He must forget either to strut or to blush
with diffidence. Neither audience should be forgotten, and neither
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: for, and laid by in the daytime instead of running --
was Jim a runaway nigger? Says I:
"Goodness sakes! would a runaway nigger run
SOUTH?"
No, they allowed he wouldn't. I had to account
for things some way, so I says:
"My folks was living in Pike County, in Missouri,
where I was born, and they all died off but me and pa
and my brother Ike. Pa, he 'lowed he'd break up
and go down and live with Uncle Ben, who's got a
little one-horse place on the river, forty-four mile
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: their opinion of her until the moment when Monsieur de Listomere
becomes a peer of France, when she herself will be thirty-six years of
age,--a period of life when most women discover that they are the
dupes of social laws.
The marquis is a rather insignificant man. He stands well at court;
his good qualities are as negative as his defects; the former can no
more make him a reputation for virtue than the latter can give him the
sort of glamor cast by vice. As deputy, he never speaks, but he votes
RIGHT. He behaves in his own home as he does in the Chamber.
Consequently, he is held to be one of the best husbands in France.
Though not susceptible of lively interest, he never scolds, unless, to
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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 Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas: Therefore, leaving directions at every place for Grimaud,
they took a crossroad which conducted the little troop by
the bank of a small stream flowing into the Lys. The country
was beautiful, intersected by valleys as green as the
emerald. Here and there they passed little copses crossing
the path which they were following. In anticipation of some
ambuscade in each of these little woods the tutor placed his
two servants at the head of the band, thus forming the
advance guard. Himself and the two young men represented the
body of the army, whilst Olivain, with his rifle upon his
knee and his eyes upon the watch, protected the rear.
Twenty Years After |
