| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: hurried Somerset out of the front door, and left him
standing, key in hand, upon the pavement.
The next day, about the hour appointed, the young man found
his way to the square, which I will here call Golden Square,
though that was not its name. What to expect, he knew not;
for a man may live in dreams, and yet be unprepared for their
realisation. It was already with a certain pang of surprise
that he beheld the mansion, standing in the eye of day, a
solid among solids. The key, upon trial, readily opened the
front door; he entered that great house, a privileged
burglar; and, escorted by the echoes of desertion, rapidly
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: the postscript of her confession.
"Ah! my father!" said she, "I must confess to you that I am daily
exercised by the desire to have a child. Is it wrong?"
"No," said the abbot.
But she went on, "It is by nature commanded to my husband not to draw
from his wealth to bring about his poverty, as the old women say by
the way."
"Then," replied the priest, "you must live virtuously and abstain from
all thoughts of this kind."
"But I have heard it professed by the Lady of Jallanges, that it was
not a sin when from it one derived neither profit nor pleasure."
Droll Stories, V. 1 |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: the long, slim, Heliumitic blade that swung in his harness.
How easy it would have been! How easy to avenge the
cowardly trick that had been played upon him--to avenge
Helium and Ptarth and Thuvia!
But his hand moved not toward the dagger's hilt,
for first Vas Kor must serve a better purpose--
he might know where Thuvia of Ptarth lay hidden now,
if it had truly been Dusarians that had spirited her
away during the fight before Aaanthor.
And then, too, there was the instigator of the entire
foul plot. HE must pay the penalty; and who better than
Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
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 Herland by Charlotte Gilman: land but a bunch of hysterical girls and some older slave women.
That was about two thousand years ago.
At first there was a period of sheer despair. The mountains
towered between them and their old enemies, but also between
them and escape. There was no way up or down or out--they
simply had to stay there. Some were for suicide, but not the
majority. They must have been a plucky lot, as a whole, and they
decided to live--as long as they did live. Of course they had hope,
as youth must, that something would happen to change their fate.
So they set to work, to bury the dead, to plow and sow,
to care for one another.
Herland |
