| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Might speak them. Then we heard them, every word.
The Dead Village
Here there is death. But even here, they say, --
Here where the dull sun shines this afternoon
As desolate as ever the dead moon
Did glimmer on dead Sardis, -- men were gay;
And there were little children here to play,
With small soft hands that once did keep in tune
The strings that stretch from heaven, till too soon
The change came, and the music passed away.
Now there is nothing but the ghosts of things, --
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: reputation of cleverness, from nobody's really having any. It was
agreeable to him at this very moment to be sure that when he had
answered, after a brief demur, "Well, yes; so, precisely, you may
put it!" her imagination would still do him justice. He explained
that even if never a dollar were to come to him from the other
house he would nevertheless cherish this one; and he dwelt,
further, while they lingered and wandered, on the fact of the
stupefaction he was already exciting, the positive mystification he
felt himself create.
He spoke of the value of all he read into it, into the mere sight
of the walls, mere shapes of the rooms, mere sound of the floors,
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Art of War by Sun Tzu: than another after reading the maxims of Sun Tzu, it is that
their essence has been distilled from a large store of personal
observation and experience. They reflect the mind not only of a
born strategist, gifted with a rare faculty of generalization,
but also of a practical soldier closely acquainted with the
military conditions of his time. To say nothing of the fact that
these sayings have been accepted and endorsed by all the greatest
captains of Chinese history, they offer a combination of
freshness and sincerity, acuteness and common sense, which quite
excludes the idea that they were artificially concocted in the
study. If we admit, then, that the 13 chapters were the genuine
The Art of War |
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 When the World Shook by H. Rider Haggard: seemed to bulge and flow in every direction, a dirty white dress
several sizes too small, a kind of Salvation Army bonnet without
a crown and a prayer-book which she held pressed to her middle;
the general effect being hideous, and in some curious way,
improper.
"Certainly," said Bastin, "though I admit her clothes do not
seem to fit and she has not buttoned them up as she ought. But it
is not of the pictures so much as of the letterpress with its
false and scandalous accusations, that I complain."
"Why do you complain?" asked Bickley. "Probably it is quite
true, though that we could never ascertain without visiting the
When the World Shook |
