| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: be leaving you now. I was passing down the Anglebury Road,
towards my niece's new home, who is returning tonight with
her husband; and seeing the bonfire and hearing Olly's voice
among the rest I came up here to learn what was going on.
I should like her to walk with me, as her way is mine."
"Ay, sure, ma'am, I'm just thinking of moving," said Olly.
"Why, you'll be safe to meet the reddleman that I told ye of,"
said Fairway. "He's only gone back to get his van.
We heard that your niece and her husband were coming
straight home as soon as they were married, and we are
going down there shortly, to give 'em a song o' welcome."
Return of the Native |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: not ordained to die and meet thy fate in Argos, the
pasture-land of horses, but the deathless gods will convey
thee to the Elysian plain and the world's end, where is
Rhadamanthus of the fair hair, where life is easiest for
men. No snow is there, nor yet great storm, nor any rain;
but always ocean sendeth forth the breeze of the shrill
West to blow cool on men; yea, for thou hast Helen to wife,
and thereby they deem thee to be son of Zeus."
'So spake he, and plunged into the heaving sea; but I
betook me to the ships with my godlike company, and my
heart was darkly troubled as I went. Now after I had come
The Odyssey |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Blix by Frank Norris: There, there, that will do. Have you everything that belongs to
you? I know you'll go away and leave something here. There's your
cigarette case, and your book, and of course the banjo."
As if warned by a mysterious instinct, the fat Chinaman made his
appearance in the outer room. Condy put his fingers into his vest
pocket, then dropped back upon his stool with a suppressed
exclamation of horror.
"Condy!" exclaimed Blix in alarm, "are you sick?"--for he had
turned a positive white.
|
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 Heart of the West by O. Henry: for a season. I sat on a log and made cogitations on life and old age
and the zodiac and the ways of women and all the disorder that goes
with a lifetime. I passed myself congratulations that I had probably
saved my old friend Mack from his attack of Indian summer. I knew when
he got well of it and shed his infatuation and his patent leather
shoes, he would feel grateful. "To keep old Mack disinvolved," thinks
I, "from relapses like this, is worth more than a thousand dollars."
And most of all I was glad that I'd made a study of women, and wasn't
to be deceived any by their means of conceit and evolution.
It must have been half-past five when I got back home. I stepped in;
and there sat old Mack on the back of his neck in his old clothes with
Heart of the West |
