| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: to play loud when you was so sick.'
"'Well, well,' says Uncle Cal, 'maybe I did. Maybe I did and forgot
about it. My head is a little cranky at times. I heard the man in the
store play it fine. I'm mighty glad you like it, Marilla. Yes, I
believe I could go to sleep a while if you'll stay right beside me
till I do.'
"There was where Marilla had me guessing. Much as she thought of that
old man, she wouldn't strike a note on that piano that he'd bought
her. I couldn't imagine why she told him she'd been playing it, for
the wagon-sheet hadn't ever been off of it since she put it back on
the same day it come. I knew she could play a little anyhow, for I'd
Heart of the West |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Hermione's Little Group of Serious Thinkers by Don Marquis: first.
"Have you never asked yourself," it began
"'Why was I born?'"
Fancy knowing that about one! If there is one
question I have asked myself thousands and thou-
sands of times it is, "Why was I born?"
And then the letter went on to talk about horo-
scopes and the Inevitable.
"We may not overcome the inevitable," it said,
"but it is ours to see that the Inevitable does not
overcome us."
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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 Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: dishonest means of acquiring them, and, generally, whether they are a good
thing or a bad.
Very good, I said, and I am obliged to you for the hint: in future we will
be more careful. But why do not you yourself, as you introduced the
argument, and do not think that the former discussion touched the point at
issue, tell us whether you consider riches to be a good or an evil?
I am of opinion, he said, that they are a good. He was about to add
something more, when Critias interrupted him:--Do you really suppose so,
Eryxias?
Certainly, replied Eryxias; I should be mad if I did not: and I do not
fancy that you would find any one else of a contrary opinion.
|
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 To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: and flights of small rain seemed to have taken upon her a knowledge of
the sorrows of mankind.
[Prue Ramsay died that summer in some illness connected with
childbirth, which was indeed a tragedy, people said, everything, they
said, had promised so well.]
And now in the heat of summer the wind sent its spies about the house
again. Flies wove a web in the sunny rooms; weeds that had grown close
to the glass in the night tapped methodically at the window pane. When
darkness fell, the stroke of the Lighthouse, which had laid itself with
such authority upon the carpet in the darkness, tracing its pattern,
came now in the softer light of spring mixed with moonlight gliding
To the Lighthouse |
