| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: "I am going," said M. de Bargeton, and he took his hat and his walking
cane.
"Good, that is how I like a man to behave, dear; you are a gentleman,"
said his wife. She felt touched by his conduct, and made the old man
very happy and proud by putting up her forehead for a kiss. She felt
something like a maternal affection for the great child; and when the
carriage gateway had shut with a clang behind him, the tears came into
her eyes in spite of herself.
"How he loves me!" she thought. "He clings to life, poor, dear man,
and yet he would give his life for me."
It did not trouble M. de Bargeton that he must stand up and face his
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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 Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: walls, the poor terrified little woman in a brown velvet toque with
rabbit's ears thumping the cold piano, Miss Eccles poking the girls' feet
with her long white wand--and this was so tremendous that Leila was sure if
her partner didn't come and she had to listen to that marvellous music and
to watch the others sliding, gliding over the golden floor, she would die
at least, or faint, or lift her arms and fly out of one of those dark
windows that showed the stars.
"Ours, I think--" Some one bowed, smiled, and offered her his arm; she
hadn't to die after all. Some one's hand pressed her waist, and she
floated away like a flower that is tossed into a pool.
"Quite a good floor, isn't it?" drawled a faint voice close to her ear.
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: of smoke which burst through the door in the hay-loft above the
stalls of the three horses next the bedroom of Carl and Cully. A
window was hastily opened in Tom's house and a frightened shriek
broke the stillness of the night. It was Jennie's voice, and it
had a tone of something besides alarm.
What the sight of the fire had paralyzed in Carl, the voice awoke.
"No, no! I here--I safe, Jan!" he cried, clearing the fence with
a bound.
Cully did not hear Jennie. He saw only the curling flames over
the Big Gray's head. As he dashed down the slope he kept
muttering the old horse's pet names, catching his breath, and
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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 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: out I did not sleep at all. At breakfast I informed Mr. Burns that
I had resigned my command.
He dropped his knife and fork and looked at me with indignation.
"You have, sir! I thought you loved the ship."
"So I do, Burns," I said. "But the fact is that the Indian Ocean
and everything that is in it has lost its charm for me. I am going
home as passenger by the Suez Canal."
"Everything that is in it," he repeated angrily. "I've never heard
anybody talk like this. And to tell you the truth, sir, all the
time we have been together I've never quite made you out. What's
one ocean more than another? Charm, indeed!"
'Twixt Land & Sea |
