| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lost Continent by Edgar Rice Burroughs: I had been wishing that I might be rid of her, and now that
she was gone I would have given my life to have her back
again.
Wearily I turned to swim about the spot where she had
disappeared, hoping that she might rise once at least, and I
would be given the opportunity to save her, and, as I
turned, the water boiled before my face and her head shot up
before me. I was on the point of striking out to seize her,
when a happy smile illumined her features.
"You are not dead!" she cried. "I have been searching the
bottom for you. I was sure that the blow she gave you must
Lost Continent |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: loog; listun at der yunge girls."
Three young women and a young man who played a zither
occupied the stage. They were dressed in Tyrolese costume;
they were yodlers, and sang in German about "mountain tops"
and "bold hunters" and the like. The yodling chorus was a
marvel of flute-like modulations. The girls were really
pretty, and were not made up in the least. Their "turn" had
a great success. Mrs. Sieppe was entranced. Instantly she
remembered her girlhood and her native Swiss village.
"Ach, dot is heavunly; joost like der old country. Mein
gran'mutter used to be one of der mos' famous yodlers. When
McTeague |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: and putting everything within those walls into harmony with the life
of her heart.
The pair had two sons and two daughters. The eldest, Marguerite, was
born in 1796. The last child was a boy, now three years old, named
Jean-Balthazar. The maternal sentiment in Madame Claes was almost
equal to her love for her husband; and there rose in her soul,
especially during the last days of her life, a terrible struggle
between those nearly balanced feelings, of which the one became, as it
were, an enemy of the other. The tears and the terror that marked her
face at the moment when this tale of a domestic drama then lowering
over the quiet house begins, were caused by the fear of having
|
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 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: float, if it ran on shore, would lie so high, and the other sink
lower, as before, that it would endanger my cargo again. All that
I could do was to wait till the tide was at the highest, keeping
the raft with my oar like an anchor, to hold the side of it fast to
the shore, near a flat piece of ground, which I expected the water
would flow over; and so it did. As soon as I found water enough -
for my raft drew about a foot of water - I thrust her upon that
flat piece of ground, and there fastened or moored her, by sticking
my two broken oars into the ground, one on one side near one end,
and one on the other side near the other end; and thus I lay till
the water ebbed away, and left my raft and all my cargo safe on
Robinson Crusoe |
