| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: La Fere. 'I am married,' he said, 'and I have my pretty children.
But frankly, it is no life at all. From morning to night I pledge
a pack of good enough fellows who know nothing.'
It faired as the night went on, and the moon came out of the
clouds. We sat in front of the door, talking softly with Bazin.
At the guard-house opposite, the guard was being for ever turned
out, as trains of field artillery kept clanking in out of the
night, or patrols of horsemen trotted by in their cloaks. Madame
Bazin came out after a while; she was tired with her day's work, I
suppose; and she nestled up to her husband and laid her head upon
his breast. He had his arm about her, and kept gently patting her
|
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 The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: Xanadu -- that he
heard from afar
Ancestral voices prophesying war.
One of the greatest of poets, Coleridge was one of the wisest of
men, and it was not for nothing that he read us this parable. Let us
have a little less of "hands across the sea," and a little more of
that elemental distrust that is the security of nations. War loves to
come like a thief in the night; professions of eternal amity provide
the night.
WASHINGTONIAN, n. A Potomac tribesman who exchanged the privilege of
governing himself for the advantage of good government. In justice to
The Devil's Dictionary |
