| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy: ringing, upon the hard, white, turnpike road as it followed the
level ridge in a perfectly straight line, seeming to be absorbed
ultimately by the white of the sky.
Targan Bay--which had the merit of being easily got at--was duly
visited. They then swept round by innumerable lanes, in which not
twenty consecutive yards were either straight or level, to the
domain of Lord Luxellian. A woman with a double chin and thick
neck, like Queen Anne by Dahl, threw open the lodge gate, a little
boy standing behind her.
'I'll give him something, poor little fellow,' said Elfride,
pulling out her purse and hastily opening it. From the interior
A Pair of Blue Eyes |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lesson of the Master by Henry James: artistic point of view it contains a bottomless ambiguity."
She became at this, on the spot, all intensity. "Ah do describe
that more - it's so interesting. There are no such suggestive
questions. I'm so fond of them. He thinks he's a failure -
fancy!" she beautifully wailed.
"That depends on what his ideal may have been. With his gifts it
ought to have been high. But till one knows what he really
proposed to himself - ? Do YOU know by chance?" the young man
broke off.
"Oh he doesn't talk to me about himself. I can't make him. It's
too provoking."
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Hermione's Little Group of Serious Thinkers by Don Marquis: The third color is black,
And if there were a fourth color it would be
green!
Alas! Why is there never a fourth color?
Poppies, poppies, poppies, but no Green Poppy!
I asked the little crippled girl who sells poppies to
Buy bread for the drunken father who beats
Her,
And she said, "I, too, seek the fourth color!"
I asked the boy who drives the grocer's delivery
wagon, the old apple woman without teeth, the
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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 Spirit of the Border by Zane Grey: strings were not as he usually tied them--and had dressed the wound. Joe
decided, after some deliberation, that Whispering Winds had found him, made
him as comfortable as possible, and, leaving Mose on guard, had gone out to
hunt for food, or perhaps back to the Indian encampment. The rifle and horns
he had taken from Girty's hut, together with Silvertip's knife, lay beside
him.
As Joe lay there hoping for Whispering Winds' return, his reflections were not
pleasant. Fortunate, indeed, he was to be alive; but he had no hope he could
continue to be favored by fortune. Odds were now against his escape. Girty
would have the Delawares on his trail like a pack of hungry wolves. He could
not understand the absence of Whispering Winds. She would have died sooner
The Spirit of the Border |
