| 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: followed. That is, Gaston greatly desired it; but this desire
yielded to his wife's strenuous opposition.
However, before the year ended, she proposed, wholly from
herself, to have Gouvernail visit them again. Her husband was
surprised and delighted with the suggestion coming from her.
"I am glad, chere amie, to know that you have finally overcome
your dislike for him; truly he did not deserve it."
"Oh," she told him, laughingly, after pressing a long, tender
kiss upon his lips, "I have overcome everything! you will see.
This time I shall be very nice to him."
The Kiss
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 Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: Good, I said to myself, another one! Then I scrutinize her. Ah, my
dear fellow, speaking physically, my incognita is the most adorable
feminine person whom I ever met. She belongs to that feminine variety
which the Romans call /fulva, flava/--the woman of fire. And in chief,
what struck me the most, what I am still taken with, are her two
yellow eyes, like a tiger's, a golden yellow that gleams, living gold,
gold which thinks, gold which loves, and is determined to take refuge
in your pocket."
"My dear fellow, we are full of her!" cried Paul. "She comes here
sometimes--/the girl with the golden eyes/! That is the name we have
given her. She is a young creature--not more than twenty-two, and I
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Under the Andes by Rex Stout: choose for ourselves the final moment--we were yet masters of our
fates.
All action seems useless when hope is dead, but certain things
needed to be done, and Harry and I bestirred ourselves. We
extinguished the flame in all the urns but one to save the oil, not
caring to depart in darkness.
Our supply of water, we found, was quite sufficient to last
for several days, if used sparingly; for we intended to support
life so long as we had the fuel. Then responsibility ceases; man
has a right to hasten that which fortune has made inevitable.
The hours passed by.
|
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 A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: beginning of the year, viz., in the first week in March, the penny
wheaten loaf was ten ounces and a half; and in the height of the
contagion it was to be had at nine ounces and a half, and never dearer,
no, not all that season. And about the beginning of November it was
sold ten ounces and a half again; the like of which, I believe, was
never heard of in any city, under so dreadful a visitation, before.
(2) Neither was there (which I wondered much at) any want of
bakers or ovens kept open to supply the people with the bread; but this
was indeed alleged by some families, viz., that their maidservants,
going to the bakehouses with their dough to be baked, which was then
the custom, sometimes came home with the sickness (that is to say the
A Journal of the Plague Year |
