| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: to be sure, and had seen more of the world; but I was a boy
and she was a girl, and I resented her protecting manner.
Before the autumn was over, she began to treat me more like an
equal and to defer to me in other things than reading lessons.
This change came about from an adventure we had together.
One day when I rode over to the Shimerdas' I found Antonia starting off
on foot for Russian Peter's house, to borrow a spade Ambrosch needed.
I offered to take her on the pony, and she got up behind me.
There had been another black frost the night before, and the air
was clear and heady as wine. Within a week all the blooming roads
had been despoiled, hundreds of miles of yellow sunflowers had been
My Antonia |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: eagerly at a plan that might save him from parting with Wildfire.
But when Dunstan's meditation reached this point, the inclination to
go on grew strong and prevailed. He didn't want to give Godfrey
that pleasure: he preferred that Master Godfrey should be vexed.
Moreover, Dunstan enjoyed the self-important consciousness of having
a horse to sell, and the opportunity of driving a bargain,
swaggering, and possibly taking somebody in. He might have all the
satisfaction attendant on selling his brother's horse, and not the
less have the further satisfaction of setting Godfrey to borrow
Marner's money. So he rode on to cover.
Bryce and Keating were there, as Dunstan was quite sure they would
Silas Marner |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: "I am curious," I said, "to learn what the motive force of this
tragic affair was - I mean the patent medicine. Do you know?"
He named it, and I whistled respectfully. Nothing less than
Parker's Lively Lumbago Pills. Enormous property! You know it;
all the world knows it. Every second man, at least, on this globe
of ours has tried it.
"Why!" I cried, "they missed an immense fortune."
"Yes," he mumbled, "by the price of a revolver-shot."
He told me also that eventually Cloete returned to the States,
passenger in a cargo-boat from Albert Dock. The night before he
sailed he met him wandering about the quays, and took him home for
Within the Tides |
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 Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: have despaired. He had, however, a happy mixture of pliability
and perseverance in his nature; he was in form and spirit like a
supple-jackÄyielding, but tough; though he bent, he never broke;
and though he bowed beneath the slightest pressure, yet, the
moment it was away--jerk!--he was as erect, and carried his
head as high as ever.
To have taken the field openly against his rival would have
been madness; for he was not a man to be thwarted in his amours,
any more than that stormy lover, Achilles. Ichabod, therefore,
made his advances in a quiet and gently insinuating manner. Under
cover of his character of singing-master, he made frequent visits
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
