| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: Or the silver beard of a stream hung and swung in the breeze.
High overhead, with a cry, the torrents leaped for the main,
And silently sprinkled below in thin perennial rain.
Dark in the staring noon, dark was Rua's ravine,
Damp and cold was the air, and the face of the cliffs was green.
Here, in the rocky pit, accursed already of old,
On a stone in the midst of a river, Rua sat and was cold.
"Valley of mid-day shadows, valley of silent falls,
Rua sang, and his voice went hollow about the walls,
"Valley of shadow and rock, a doleful prison to me,
What is the life you can give to a child of the sun and the sea?"
Ballads |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Secret Places of the Heart by H. G. Wells: flower garden they ended the day's journey.
Tintern Abbey they thought a poor graceless mass of ruin down
beside the river, and it was fenced about jealously and
locked up from their invasion. After dinner Sir Richmond and
Miss Grammont went for a walk in the mingled twilight and
moonlight up the hill towards Chepstow. Both of them were
absurdly and nervously pressing to Belinda to come with them,
but she was far too wise to take this sudden desire for her
company seriously. Her dinner shoes, she said, were too thin.
Perhaps she would change and come out a little later. "Yes,
come later," said Miss Grammont and led the way to the door.
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: were dying to ask my hand just for ONE set; and - oh! by-the-by -
he's got a new curate: that seedy old fellow Mr. Bligh has got his
long-wished-for living at last, and is gone.'
'And what is the new one like?'
'Oh, SUCH a beast! Weston his name is. I can give you his
description in three words - an insensate, ugly, stupid blockhead.
That's four, but no matter - enough of HIM now.'
Then she returned to the ball, and gave me a further account of her
deportment there, and at the several parties she had since
attended; and further particulars respecting Sir Thomas Ashby and
Messrs. Meltham, Green, and Hatfield, and the ineffaceable
Agnes Grey |
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 Lost Continent by Edgar Rice Burroughs: have crossed the border, and are marching toward New
Gondar."
"Who will win?" I asked.
He shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows?" he said. "I hope
it will be the yellow men, but Menelek is powerful--it will
take many yellow men to defeat him."
Crowds were gathering along the sidewalks to view the
emperor's entry into the city. I took my place among them,
although I hate crowds, and I am glad that I did, for I
witnessed such a spectacle of barbaric splendor as no other
Pan-American has ever looked upon.
Lost Continent |
