| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: "Yeh, I ran into her comin' back."
Upstairs, lying fully dressed on her hard little bed, she stared
up into the darkness, thinking, her hands limp at her sides. Oh,
well, what's the diff? You had to make the best of it.
Everybody makin' a fuss about the soldiers--feeding 'em, and
asking 'em to their houses, and sending 'em things, and giving
dances and picnics and parties so they wouldn't be lonesome.
Chuck had told her all about it. The other boys told the same.
They could just pick and choose their good times. Tessie's mind
groped about, sensing a certain injustice. How about the girls?
She didn't put it thus squarely. Hers was not a logical mind.
One Basket |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton: Part arable and tilth, whereon were sheaves
New reaped; the other part sheep-walks and folds;
I' the midst an altar as the land-mark stood,
Rustick, of grassy sord; thither anon
A sweaty reaper from his tillage brought
First fruits, the green ear, and the yellow sheaf,
Unculled, as came to hand; a shepherd next,
More meek, came with the firstlings of his flock,
Choicest and best; then, sacrificing, laid
The inwards and their fat, with incense strowed,
On the cleft wood, and all due rights performed:
Paradise Lost |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: What should Death do in such a merry house,
With but a wife, a husband, and a friend
To give it greeting? Let Death go to houses
Where there are vile, adulterous things, chaste wives
Who growing weary of their noble lords
Draw back the curtains of their marriage beds,
And in polluted and dishonoured sheets
Feed some unlawful lust. Ay! 'tis so
Strange, and yet so. YOU do not know the world.
YOU are too single and too honourable.
I know it well. And would it were not so,
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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 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: "Your father's quite unreasonable," pronounced Jasper judicially.
"I don't know," she said in a doubtful tone. Something of old
Nelson's dread of the authorities had rubbed off on the girl since
she had to live with it day after day. "I don't know. Papa's
afraid of being reduced to beggary, as he says, in his old days.
Look here, kid, you had better clear out to-morrow, first thing."
Jasper had hoped for another afternoon with Freya, an afternoon of
quiet felicity with the girl by his side and his eyes on his brig,
anticipating a blissful future. His silence was eloquent with
disappointment, and Freya understood it very well. She, too, was
disappointed. But it was her business to be sensible.
'Twixt Land & Sea |
