| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Awakening & Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin: from her, looking into the dying fire. For a moment or two he kept an
impressive silence.
"Your manner has not misled me, Mrs. Pontellier," he said
finally. "My own emotions have done that. I couldn't help it.
When I'm near you, how could I help it? Don't think anything of it,
don't bother, please. You see, I go when you command me. If you
wish me to stay away, I shall do so. If you let me come back,
I--oh! you will let me come back?"
He cast one appealing glance at her, to which she made no
response. Alcee Arobin's manner was so genuine that it often
deceived even himself.
Awakening & Selected Short Stories |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: So close was it that a few strokes brought him up to the
thing, when to his amazement his outstretched hand came in
contact with a ship's side.
As the agile ape-man clambered over the vessel's rail there
came to his sensitive ears the sound of a struggle at the
opposite side of the deck.
Noiselessly he sped across the intervening space.
The moon had risen now, and, though the sky was still
banked with clouds, a lesser darkness enveloped the scene
than that which had blotted out all sight earlier in
the night. His keen eyes, therefore, saw the figures
The Beasts of Tarzan |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith: again.
MRS. HARDCASTLE. To be plain with you, my dear Constance, if I could
find them you should have them. They're missing, I assure you. Lost,
for aught I know; but we must have patience wherever they are.
MISS NEVILLE. I'll not believe it! this is but a shallow pretence to
deny me. I know they are too valuable to be so slightly kept, and as
you are to answer for the loss--
MRS. HARDCASTLE. Don't be alarmed, Constance. If they be lost, I must
restore an equivalent. But my son knows they are missing, and not to
be found.
TONY. That I can bear witness to. They are missing, and not to be
She Stoops to Conquer |
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 Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling: When they were aware of a sloop-of-war, ghost-white and very near.
Her flag she showed, and her guns she showed -- three of them, black, abeam,
And a funnel white with the crusted salt, but never a show of steam.
There was no time to man the brakes, they knocked the shackle free,
And the ~Northern Light~ stood out again, goose-winged to open sea.
(For life it is that is worse than death, by force of Russian law
To work in the mines of mercury that loose the teeth in your jaw.)
They had not run a mile from shore -- they heard no shots behind --
When the skipper smote his hand on his thigh and threw her up in the wind:
"Bluffed -- raised out on a bluff," said he, "for if my name's Tom Hall,
Verses 1889-1896 |
