| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Awakening & Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin: comedian, a clown, a jack-in-the-box? Why shouldn't she? You
Creoles! I have no patience with you! Am I always to be regarded as
a feature of an amusing programme? I hope Mrs. Pontellier does take
me seriously. I hope she has discernment enough to find in me
something besides the blagueur. If I thought there was any doubt--"
"Oh, enough, Robert!" she broke into his heated outburst.
"You are not thinking of what you are saying. You speak with about
as little reflection as we might expect from one of those children
down there playing in the sand. If your attentions to any married
women here were ever offered with any intention of being
convincing, you would not be the gentleman we all know you to be,
Awakening & Selected Short Stories |
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 Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or
the recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies
hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse,
comfortless, antique, and tattered. Many books and musical
instruments lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality
to the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow.
An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and
pervaded all.
Upon my entrance, Usher rose from a sofa on which he had
been lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious warmth
which had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone
The Fall of the House of Usher |
