| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: set the minute they get a start the wrong way. It is the
always-flying-out people who are the easiest to get on with in
the long run."
"Well," said Abby, "maybe that is so, but folks might get worn
all to a frazzle by the flying-out ones before the long run. I'd
rather take my chances with a woman like Eudora. She always seems
just so, just as calm and sweet. When the Ames's barn, that was
next to hers, burned down and the wind was her way, she just
walked in and out of her house, carrying the things she valued
most, and she looked like a picture--somehow she had got all
dressed fit to make calls--and there wasn't a muscle of her face
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: sphere. It may not use it in the sphere that belongs to others.
It is exactly because a man cannot do a thing that he is the proper
judge of it.
ERNEST. Do you really mean that?
GILBERT. Yes, for creation limits, while contemplation widens, the
vision.
ERNEST. But what about technique? Surely each art has its
separate technique?
GILBERT. Certainly: each art has its grammar and its materials.
There is no mystery about either, and the incompetent can always be
correct. But, while the laws upon which Art rests may be fixed and
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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 Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: comer, and you have power upon the hour. Come with me to my stone
house."
So they went by the sea margin, and the man piped the song of the
morrow, and the leaves followed behind them as they went.
Then they sat down together; and the sea beat on the terrace, and
the gulls cried about the towers, and the wind crooned in the
chimneys of the house. Nine years they sat, and every year when it
fell autumn, the man said, "This is the hour, and I have power in
it"; and the daughter of the King said, "Nay, but pipe me the song
of the morrow". And he piped it, and it was long like years.
Now when the nine years were gone, the King's daughter of Duntrine
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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 The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: of their long foot-sore wanderings in quest of food. Now and
again they asked some question of the Eaters of Flesh across
the river, but all the news was bad, and the roaring hot wind
of the Jungle came and went between the rocks and the rattling
branches, and scattered twigs, and dust on the water.
"The men-folk, too, they die beside their ploughs," said a
young sambhur. "I passed three between sunset and night.
They lay still, and their Bullocks with them. We also shall lie
still in a little."
"The river has fallen since last night," said Baloo. "O Hathi,
hast thou ever seen the like of this drought?"
The Second Jungle Book |
