| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson: So you tell me. And you tried
One night last week?
You tried hard? And even then
Found a time to pause?
When you try as hard again,
You'll have another cause.
When you find yourself at odds
With all dreamers of all gods,
You may smite yourself with rods --
But not the laws.
Though they seem to show a spite
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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 Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: usual docility. It flattered him. He raised his head and threw
out his chest.
"Don't be nervous, Winnie. Mustn't be nervous! `Bus all right,"
he answered in a brusque, slurring stammer partaking of the
timorousness of a child and the resolution of a man. He advanced
fearlessly with the woman on his arm, but his lower lip dropped.
Nevertheless, on the pavement of the squalid and wide thoroughfare,
whose poverty in all the amenities of life stood foolishly exposed
by a mad profusion of gas-lights, their resemblance to each other
was so pronounced as to strike the casual passers-by.
Before the doors of the public-house at the corner, where the
The Secret Agent |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: him to try to rise again; and meantime the barkeeper got up, and
put his hand to his head. "Christ!" he said, "I thought I was
done for that time. Did he cut me?"
"Don't see anything, Jake," said the policeman. "What's the
matter with him?"
"Just crazy drunk," said the other. "A lame duck, too--but he
'most got me under the bar. Youse had better call the wagon,
Billy."
"No," said the officer. "He's got no more fight in him, I
guess--and he's only got a block to go." He twisted his hand in
Jurgis's collar and jerked at him. "Git up here, you!" he
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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 One Basket by Edna Ferber: fingers upon his face. Chet straightened, his blue eyes bluer.
Stasia looked up at him, her eyes wide. Then down at her own
hand, as if it belonged to somebody else. Her hand came up to
her own face. She burst into tears, turned, and ran. And as she
ran, and as she wept, she saw that Chet was still standing there,
looking after her.
Next morning, when Stasia Rourke went by to work, Chet Ball was
standing at the foot of the pole, waiting.
They were to have been married that next June. But that next
June Chet Ball, perched perilously on the branch of a tree in a
small woodsy spot somewhere in France, was one reason why the
One Basket |
