| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Vision Splendid by William MacLeod Raine: broke through the thicket, summoned by their calls for help. He
stooped to pick up something that his foot had struck. It was a
bottle. He looked at it and then at Jeff.
"Nothing the matter with him, Miss, but just plain drunk," the man
said with a grin. "He's been sleeping it off."
Jeff felt the quiver run through her. She rose, trembling, and
with one frightened sidelong look at him walked quickly away. He
had seen a wound in her eyes he would not soon forget. It was as
if he had struck her down while she was holding out hands to help
him.
CHAPTER 5
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ursula by Honore de Balzac: fortune of his godchild would make his naval pay superfluous.
"Alas!" said Savinien. "It will take a great deal of time to overcome
my mother's opposition. Before I left her to enter the navy she was
placed between two alternatives,--either to consent to my marrying
Ursula or else to see me only from time to time and to know me exposed
to the dangers of the profession; and you see she chose to let me go."
"But, Savinien, we shall be together," said Ursula, taking his hand
and shaking it with a sort of impatience.
To see each other and not to part,--that was the all of love to her;
she saw nothing beyond it; and her pretty gesture and the petulant
tone of her voice expressed such innocence that Savinien and the
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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 Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather: You want to look down through my memory."
She dropped her hands in her lap. "Yes, yes;
that's exactly what I want."
At this moment they heard the front door
shut with a jar, and Wilson laughed as
Mrs. Alexander rose quickly. "There he is.
Away with perspective! No past, no future
for Bartley; just the fiery moment. The only
moment that ever was or will be in the world!"
The door from the hall opened, a voice
called "Winifred?" hurriedly, and a big man
Alexander's Bridge |
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 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: whoredom, adultery, incest, lying, theft; and, in a word,
everything but murder and treason had been my practice from
the age of eighteen, or thereabouts, to three-score; and now I
was engulfed in the misery of punishment, and had an infamous
death just at the door, and yet I had no sense of my condition,
no thought of heaven or hell at least, that went any farther than
a bare flying touch, like the stitch or pain that gives a hint and
goes off. I neither had a heart to ask God's mercy, nor indeed
to think of it. And in this, I think, I have given a brief
description of the completest misery on earth.
All my terrifying thoughts were past, the horrors of the place
Moll Flanders |
