| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: A day, two days, three days, the storm may continue, according to
your luck. I have been out in the woods for a fortnight without a
drop of rain or a sign of dust. Again, I have tented on the shore
of a big lake for a week, waiting for an obstinate tempest to pass
by.
Look now, just at nightfall: is there not a little lifting and
breaking of the clouds in the west, a little shifting of the wind
toward a better quarter? You go to bed with cheerful hopes. A
dozen times in the darkness you are half awake, and listening
drowsily to the sounds of the storm. Are they waxing or waning? Is
that louder pattering a new burst of rain, or is it only the
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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 Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: "No, no, it's my old man. He's hungry," sobbed Titee, holding
out a little package. It was the remnants of his dinner, all wet
and rain-washed.
"What old man?" asked the big brother.
"My old man. Oh, please, please don't go home till I see him.
I'm not hurting much, I can go."
So, yielding to his whim, they carried him farther away, down the
sides of the track up to an embankment or levee by the sides of
the Marigny Canal. Then the big brother, suddenly stopping,
exclaimed:
"Why, here's a cave. Is it Robinson Crusoe?"
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman: You see, if a man loves a girl who is in the first place young
and inexperienced; who in the second place is educated with a
background of caveman tradition, a middle-ground of poetry and
romance, and a foreground of unspoken hope and interest all
centering upon the one Event; and who has, furthermore,
absolutely no other hope or interest worthy of the name--
why, it is a comparatively easy matter to sweep her off her feet
with a dashing attack. Terry was a past master in this process.
He tried it here, and Alima was so affronted, so repelled,
that it was weeks before he got near enough to try again.
The more coldly she denied him, the hotter his determination;
Herland |
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 At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: their carriage when it reached the Rue des Trois-Freres, led her to an
apartment embellished by all the arts.
The fever of passion which possessed Theodore made a year fly over the
young couple without a single cloud to dim the blue sky under which
they lived. Life did not hang heavy on the lovers' hands. Theodore
lavished on every day inexhaustible /fioriture/ of enjoyment, and he
delighted to vary the transports of passion by the soft languor of
those hours of repose when souls soar so high that they seem to have
forgotten all bodily union. Augustine was too happy for reflection;
she floated on an undulating tide of rapture; she thought she could
not do enough by abandoning herself to sanctioned and sacred married
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