| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Flower Fables by Louisa May Alcott: on the rosy strawberries that grew beside her, watching meanwhile
the crimson evening clouds that glowed around the setting sun.
The night-wind rustled through the boughs, rocking the flowers
to sleep; the wild birds sang their evening hymns, and all within
the wood grew calm and still; paler and paler grew the purple light,
lower and lower drooped little Annie's head, the tall ferns bent
to shield her from the dew, the whispering pines sang a soft lullaby;
and when the Autumn moon rose up, her silver light shone on the child,
where, pillowed on green moss, she lay asleep amid the wood-flowers
in the dim old forest.
And all night long beside her stood the Fairy she had sought, and
Flower Fables |
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 Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: up on the ground. His father's house was getting
over full. Two of his brothers were married and
had children. He promised to send money home
from America by post twice a year. His father
sold an old cow, a pair of piebald mountain ponies
of his own raising, and a cleared plot of fair pas-
ture land on the sunny slope of a pine-clad pass to
a Jew inn-keeper in order to pay the people of the
ship that took men to America to get rich in a
short time.
"He must have been a real adventurer at heart,
Amy Foster |
