| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: castaways were only saved from drowning to die
miserably from starvation on a barren coast; oth-
ers suffered violent death or else slavery, passing
through years of precarious existence with people
to whom their strangeness was an object of suspi-
cion, dislike or fear. We read about these things,
and they are very pitiful. It is indeed hard upon
a man to find himself a lost stranger, helpless,
incomprehensible, and of a mysterious origin, in
some obscure corner of the earth. Yet amongst all
the adventurers shipwrecked in all the wild parts of
Amy Foster |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Awakening & Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin: his pockets, La Folle patted his round red cheek, wiped his soiled
hands on her apron, and smoothed his hair. Then she watched him
as, with his cakes in his hand, he crossed her strip of cotton back
of the cabin, and disappeared into the wood.
He had boasted of the things he was going to do with his gun
out there.
"You think they got plenty deer in the wood, La Folle?" he had
inquired, with the calculating air of an experienced hunter.
"Non, non!" the woman laughed. "Don't you look fo' no deer, Cheri.
Dat's too big. But you bring La Folle one good fat squirrel
fo' her dinner to-morrow, an' she goin' be satisfi'."
Awakening & Selected Short Stories |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: saved her. When they came to the surface, they had been picked
up by Aunt Jane's Robinson Crusoe, who had at last unmoored his
pilot-boat and was rounding the light-house for the outer
harbor.
She and the child were soon landed, and given over to the
ladies. Due attention was paid to her young rescuer, whose
dripping garments seemed for the moment as glorious as a
blood-stained flag. He seemed a simple, frank young fellow of
French or German origin, but speaking English remarkably well;
he was not high-bred, by any means, but had apparently the
culture of an average German of the middle class. Harry fancied
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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 Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London: the signal. Le Goire lifted an old French chanson; the men, like
a row of ghosts in the dim starlight, bent their backs to the tow
line; the steering oar cut the black current sharply, and the boat
swept out into the night.
WHICH MAKE MEN REMEMBER
Fortune La Pearle crushed his way through the snow, sobbing,
straining, cursing his luck, Alaska, Nome, the cards, and the man
who had felt his knife. The hot blood was freezing on his hands,
and the scene yet bright in his eyes,--the man, clutching the
table and sinking slowly to the floor; the rolling counters and
the scattered deck; the swift shiver throughout the room, and the
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