| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: all warm-blooded life. When we dragged him down into the draw,
Dude sprang off to the end of his tether and shivered all over--
wouldn't let us come near him.
We decided that Antonia should ride Dude home, and I would walk.
As she rode along slowly, her bare legs swinging against the pony's sides,
she kept shouting back to me about how astonished everybody would be.
I followed with the spade over my shoulder, dragging my snake. Her exultation
was contagious. The great land had never looked to me so big and free.
If the red grass were full of rattlers, I was equal to them all.
Nevertheless, I stole furtive glances behind me now and then to see
that no avenging mate, older and bigger than my quarry, was racing up
 My Antonia |
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 Soul of a Bishop by H. G. Wells: in his bedroom and talking to his wife and presently taking up
the routines of his duties again in his study downstairs.
His chief task was to finish his two addresses for the
confirmation services of the day. He read over his notes, and
threw them aside and remained for a time thinking deeply. The
Greek tags at the end of Likeman's letter came into his thoughts;
they assumed a quality of peculiar relevance to this present
occasion. He repeated the words: "Epitelesei. Epiphausei."
He took his little Testament to verify them. After some slight
trouble he located the two texts. The first, from Philippians,
ran in the old version, "He that hath begun a good work in you
|