| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: on a couch outside the door. Everett sat looking at the sputtering
night lamp until it made his eyes ache. His head dropped forward
on the foot of the bed, and he sank into a heavy, distressful
slumber. He was dreaming of Adriance's concert in Paris, and of
Adriance, the troubadour, smiling and debonair, with his boyish
face and the touch of silver gray in his hair. He heard the
applause and he saw the roses going up over the footlights until
they were stacked half as high as the piano, and the petals fell
and scattered, making crimson splotches on the floor. Down this
crimson pathway came Adriance with his youthful step, leading his
prima donna by the hand; a dark woman this time, with Spanish eyes.
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Out of Time's Abyss by Edgar Rice Burroughs: natural thing at all, just to get poor Tippet. If it had of been
a lion or something else humanlike it wouldn't look so strange;
but this here thing ain't humanlike. There ain't no such thing
an' never was."
"Bullets don't kill ghosts," said Bradley, "so this couldn't have
been a ghost. Furthermore, there are no such things. I've been
trying to place this creature. Just succeeded. It's a tyrannosaurus.
Saw picture of skeleton in magazine. There's one in New York
Natural History Museum. Seems to me it said it was found in place
called Hell Creek somewhere in western North America. Supposed to
have lived about six million years ago."
Out of Time's Abyss |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: "What are you doing?" he said.
"That is for me," replied the colonel, pointing to a pistol already
loaded, which was lying on the bench; "and this is for her," he added,
as he forced the wad into the weapon he held.
The countess was lying on the ground beside him, playing with the
balls.
"Then you do not know," said the doctor, coldly, concealing his
terror, "that in her sleep last night she called you: Philippe!"
"She called me!" cried the baron, dropping his pistol, which Stephanie
picked up. He took it from her hastily, caught up the one that was on
the bench, and rushed away.
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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 Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: I had hardly seen her yet properly. Now, as she lay cleared for sea,
the stretch of her main-deck seemed to me very find under the stars.
Very fine, very roomy for her size, and very inviting.
I descended the poop and paced the waist, my mind picturing
to myself the coming passage through the Malay Archipelago,
down the Indian Ocean, and up the Atlantic. All its phases
were familiar enough to me, every characteristic, all the
alternatives which were likely to face me on the high seas--
everything! . . . except the novel responsibility of command.
But I took heart from the reasonable thought that the ship
was like other ships, the men like other men, and that the sea
The Secret Sharer |
