| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: didn't care. But somehow I have wondered--perhaps because you
never got married--if you didn't quite mean it, if you didn't
quite know your own mind. You'll think I'm a conceited ass, but
I'm not a bad sort, Eudora. I would be as good to you as I know
how, and--we could bring him up together." He pointed to the
carriage. "I have plenty of money. We could do anything we
wanted to do for him, and we should not have to live alone. Say,
Eudora, you may not think it's the thing for a man to own up to,
but, hang it all! I'm alone, and I don't want to face the rest of
my life alone. Eudora, do you think you could make up your mind
to marry me, after all?"
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa: He had walked a long journey hither. He was waiting for the
chieftain's men to spy him.
Soon four strong men ran forth from the center wigwam toward
the hillock, where sat the man with the long bow.
"He is the avenger come to shoot the red eagle," cried the
runners to each other as they bent forward swinging their elbows
together.
They reached the side of the stranger, but he did not heed
them. Proud and silent he gazed upon the cone-shaped wigwams
beneath him. Spreading a handsomely decorated buffalo robe before
the man, two of the warriors lifted him by each shoulder and placed
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: Only, in matters of the intellect, as soon as a man can rise above the
sphere where plastic art is produced by a process of imitation, and
enter into that transcendental sphere of abstractions where everything
is understood as an elementary principle, and seen in the omnipotence
of results, that man is no longer intelligible to ordinary minds."
"You have thus explained my love for Massimilla," said Emilio. "There
is in me, my friend, a force which awakes under the fire of her look,
at her lightest touch, and wafts me to a world of light where effects
are produced of which I dare not speak. It has seemed to me often that
the delicate tissue of her skin has stamped flowers on mine as her
hand lies on my hand. Her words play on those inner keys in me, of
|
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 Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: society. It was a quiet, tidy little sitting-room; and I was not
sorry to be provided with such a harbour of refuge.
'And some time,' said she, 'I will show you the library: I never
examined its shelves, but, I daresay, it is full of wise books; and
you may go and burrow among them whenever you please. And now you
shall have some tea - it will soon be dinner-time, but I thought,
as you were accustomed to dine at one, you would perhaps like
better to have a cup of tea about this time, and to dine when we
lunch: and then, you know, you can have your tea in this room, and
that will save you from having to dine with Lady Ashby and Sir
Thomas: which would be rather awkward - at least, not awkward, but
Agnes Grey |
