| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Love Songs by Sara Teasdale: My room is like a bit of June,
Warm and close-curtained fold on fold,
But somewhere, like a homeless child,
My heart is crying in the cold.
A Cry
Oh, there are eyes that he can see,
And hands to make his hands rejoice,
But to my lover I must be
Only a voice.
Oh, there are breasts to bear his head,
And lips whereon his lips can lie,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: made believe to guide this new kind of steed. "Gee-up!', seemed quite
sufficient by way of verbal direction: the lion at once broke into an
easy canter, and we soon found ourselves in the depths of the forest.
I say 'we,' for I am certain that I accompanied them though how I managed
to keep up with a cantering lion I am wholly unable to explain.
But I was certainly one of the party when we came upon an old beggar-man
cutting sticks, at whose feet the lion made a profound obeisance,
Sylvie and Bruno at the same moment dismounting, and leaping in to the
arms of their father.
"From bad to worse!" the old man said to himself, dreamily, when the
children had finished their rather confused account of the Ambassador's
Sylvie and Bruno |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: west and east coasts. There are, too, fewer carnivorous
reptiles at the north end of the island, and not so many of the
great and ferocious members of the cat family as take their
hideous toll of life among the races further south.
By now I was obtaining some idea of the Caspakian scheme of
evolution, which partly accounted for the lack of young among
the races I had so far seen. Coming up from the beginning, the
Caspakian passes, during a single existence, through the various
stages of evolution, or at least many of them, through which the
human race has passed during the countless ages since life first
stirred upon a new world; but the question which continued to
The People That Time Forgot |
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 Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: look at the three boys was a troubled one, and made them feel
as if their dear sister were really leaving them forever. And
what do you think the snowy bull did next? Why, he set off, as
swift as the wind, straight down to the seashore, scampered
across the sand, took an airy leap, and plunged right in among
the foaming billows. The white spray rose in a shower over him
and little Europa, and fell spattering down upon the water.
Then what a scream of terror did the poor child send forth! The
three brothers screamed manfully, likewise, and ran to the
shore as fast as their legs would carry them, with Cadmus at
their head. But it was too late. When they reached the margin
Tanglewood Tales |
