| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: inextricably, and if a shriek of pain should arise, it is not
noticed in the din, and when they part, if one should stagger and
fall bleeding to the ground, can any one tell who has given the
blow? There is nothing but an unknown stiletto on the ground,
the crowd has dispersed, and masks tell no tales anyway. There
is murder, but by whom? for what? Quien sabe?
And that is how it happened on Carnival night, in the last mad
moments of Rex's reign, a broken-hearted mother sat gazing
wide-eyed and mute at a horrible something that lay across the
bed. Outside the long sweet march music of many bands floated in
as if in mockery, and the flash of rockets and Bengal lights
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: resist, he mounted the steps, and was in an instant seated
inside between two gendarmes; the two others took their
places opposite, and the carriage rolled heavily over the
stones.
The prisoner glanced at the windows -- they were grated; he
had changed his prison for another that was conveying him he
knew not whither. Through the grating, however, Dantes saw
they were passing through the Rue Caisserie, and by the Rue
Saint-Laurent and the Rue Taramis, to the port. Soon he saw
the lights of La Consigne.
The carriage stopped, the officer descended, approached the
The Count of Monte Cristo |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: since then; in what close and garish drinking-dens had found his
pleasure; and in the ward of what infirmary dreamed his last of the
Marquesas. But she, the more fortunate, lived on in her green
island. The talk, in this lost house upon the mountains, ran
chiefly upon Mapiao and his visits to the CASCO: the news of which
had probably gone abroad by then to all the island, so that there
was no paepae in Hiva-oa where they did not make the subject of
excited comment.
Not much beyond we came upon a high place in the foot of the
ravine. Two roads divided it, and met in the midst. Save for this
intersection the amphitheatre was strangely perfect, and had a
|
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 Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: there would have been some ugly temper or other uppermost in my
spirit, and so they would have wasted their songs upon an unworthy
hearer.
Next morning I went along to visit the church. It is a long-backed
red-and-white building, very much restored, and stands in a pleasant
graveyard among those great trees of which I have spoken already.
The sky was drowned in a mist. Now and again pulses of cold wind
went about the enclosure, and set the branches busy overhead, and the
dead leaves scurrying into the angles of the church buttresses. Now
and again, also, I could hear the dull sudden fall of a chestnut
among the grass - the dog would bark before the rectory door - or
|
