| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: "About thirty miles."
"Is there no force on this side of the creek?"
"Only a picket post half a mile out, on the railroad, and a
single sentinel at this end of the bridge."
"Suppose a man -- a civilian and student of hanging --
should elude the picket post and perhaps get the better of
the sentinel," said Fahrquhar, smiling, "what could he
accomplish?"
The soldier reflected. "I was there a month ago," he
replied. "I observed that the flood of last winter had
lodged a great quantity of driftwood against the wooden pier
An Occurrence at Owl Creek 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 The Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: the ordinary happiness of a man and a passenger was as far away
as heaven. . . .
The third bell rang, the whistles sounded, and the train slowly
moved off. First the guard, the station-master, then the garden,
the beautiful girl with her exquisitely sly smile, passed before
our windows. . . .
Putting my head out and looking back, I saw how, looking after
the train, she walked along the platform by the window where the
telegraph clerk was sitting, smoothed her hair, and ran into the
garden. The station no longer screened off the sunset, the plain
lay open before us, but the sun had already set and the smoke lay
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
