| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery: At the end of the fortnight Anne took to "haunting" the post
office also, in the distracted company of Jane, Ruby, and Josie,
opening the Charlottetown dailies with shaking hands and cold,
sinkaway feelings as bad as any experienced during the Entrance
week. Charlie and Gilbert were not above doing this too, but
Moody Spurgeon stayed resolutely away.
"I haven't got the grit to go there and look at a paper in cold
blood," he told Anne. "I'm just going to wait until somebody
comes and tells me suddenly whether I've passed or not."
When three weeks had gone by without the pass list appearing Anne
began to feel that she really couldn't stand the strain much longer.
Anne of Green Gables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: equal unanimity frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good
that unanimous oath?
There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should
be enforced by national or by State authority; but surely that
difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be
surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to others
by which authority it is done. And should any one in any case be
content that his oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial
controversy as to HOW it shall be kept?
Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the safeguards of
liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced,
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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 Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: fo' me. Down h'it come! H'it fall in de Meesseesip, an' fill
up--up--so, clean to de levee, den we have big crivasse, an' po'
Tante Marie float away. Bon jour, madame, you come again?
Pralines! Pralines!"
ODALIE
Now and then Carnival time comes at the time of the good Saint
Valentine, and then sometimes it comes as late as the warm days
in March, when spring is indeed upon us, and the greenness of the
grass outvies the green in the royal standards.
Days and days before the Carnival proper, New Orleans begins to
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other 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 Aeneid by Virgil: And a long chase in open view maintain.
The glad Ascanius, as his courser guides,
Spurs thro' the vale, and these and those outrides.
His horse's flanks and sides are forc'd to feel
The clanking lash, and goring of the steel.
Impatiently he views the feeble prey,
Wishing some nobler beast to cross his way,
And rather would the tusky boar attend,
Or see the tawny lion downward bend.
Meantime, the gath'ring clouds obscure the skies:
From pole to pole the forky lightning flies;
Aeneid |
