| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: meditated only to point the dart of anguish, and suppressed the
heart heavings of indignant nature merely by the force of contempt.
Now she endeavoured to brace her mind to fortitude, and to ask
herself what was to be her employment in her dreary cell? Was it
not to effect her escape, to fly to the succour of her child,
and to baffle the selfish schemes of her tyrant--her husband?
These thoughts roused her sleeping spirit, and the
self-possession returned, that seemed to have abandoned her in the
infernal solitude into which she had been precipitated. The first
emotions of overwhelming impatience began to subside, and resentment
gave place to tenderness, and more tranquil meditation; though
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather: fact is that we none of us knew him very well,
Mrs. Alexander. Though I will say for myself
that I was always confident he'd do
something extraordinary."
Mrs. Alexander's shoulders gave a slight
movement, suggestive of impatience.
"Oh, I should think that might have been
a safe prediction. Another cup, please?"
"Yes, thank you. But predicting, in the
case of boys, is not so easy as you might
imagine, Mrs. Alexander. Some get a bad
Alexander's Bridge |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: toe in the packed, rammed earth.
"The child speaks truth," said he. "All this was done last
night, and I have counted seventy tracks crossing the river. See,
Sahib, where Pudmini's leg-iron cut the bark of that tree! Yes;
she was there too."
They looked at one another and up and down, and they wondered.
For the ways of elephants are beyond the wit of any man, black or
white, to fathom.
"Forty years and five," said Machua Appa, "have I followed my
lord, the elephant, but never have I heard that any child of man
had seen what this child has seen. By all the Gods of the Hills,
The Jungle Book |
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 A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: hung at the top of a palm tree, whose foliage he had torn off. Taught
by necessity, he found the means of keeping it spread out, by
fastening it with little sticks; for the wind might not be blowing at
the moment when the passing traveler was looking through the desert.
It was during the long hours, when he had abandoned hope, that he
amused himself with the panther. He had come to learn the different
inflections of her voice, the expressions of her eyes; he had studied
the capricious patterns of all the rosettes which marked the gold of
her robe. Mignonne was not even angry when he took hold of the tuft at
the end of her tail to count her rings, those graceful ornaments which
glittered in the sun like jewelry. It gave him pleasure to contemplate
|
