| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Disordered and reduced amazedly
To resignation by the mystic seal
Of young finality the gods had laid
On everything that made him a young demon;
And one or two shot looks at him already
As he had been their executioner;
And once or twice he was, not knowing it, --
Or knowing, being sorry for poor clay
And saying nothing. . . . Yet, for all his engines,
You'll meet a thousand of an afternoon
Who strut and sun themselves and see around 'em
|
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 Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: pain-killer, or a little strychnine on toast to ease up this feeling
of unhealthiness that I have got?"
"'They was all sassy, just like you,' says old Doc, 'but we lowered
their temperature considerable. Yes, sir, I reckon we sent a good many
of ye over to old /mortuis nisi bonum/. Look at Antietam and Bull Run
and Seven Pines and around Nashville! There never was a battle where
we didn't lick ye unless you was ten to our one. I knew you were a
blame Yankee the minute I laid eyes on you.'
"'Don't reopen the chasm, Doc,' I begs him. 'Any Yankeeness I may have
is geographical; and, as far as I am concerned, a Southerner is as
good as a Filipino any day. I'm feeling to bad too argue. Let's have
|
