| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: Katusha's door. There was no sound to be heard. She was probably
awake, or else he would have heard her breathing. But as soon as
he had whispered "Katusha" she jumped up and began to persuade
him, as if angrily, to go away.
"Open! Let me in just for a moment! I implore you! He hardly knew
what he was saying.
* * * * * * *
When she left him, trembling and silent, giving no answer to his
words, he again went out into the porch and stood trying to
understand the meaning of what had happened.
It was getting lighter. From the river below the creaking and
Resurrection |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: "Pralines, madame? I lak' you' face. What fo' you wear black?
You' lil' boy daid? You tak' one, jes' see how it tas'. I had
one lil' boy once, he jes' grow 'twell he's big lak' dis, den one
day he tak' sick an' die. Oh, madame, it mos' brek my po' heart.
I burn candle in St. Rocque, I say my beads, I sprinkle holy
water roun' he's bed; he jes' lay so, he's eyes turn up, he say
'Maman, maman,' den he die! Madame, you tak' one. Non, non, no
l'argent, you tak' one fo' my lil' boy's sake.
"Pralines, pralines, m'sieu? Who mak' dese? My lil' gal,
Didele, of co'se. Non, non, I don't mak' no mo'. Po' Tante
Marie get too ol'. Didele? She's one lil' gal I 'dopt. I see
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: on which she is beyond his reach, it is but too likely, may be
this very circumstance of his coming away from them to visit us."
CHAPTER XV
Mr. Woodhouse was soon ready for his tea; and when he had drank his
tea he was quite ready to go home; and it was as much as his three
companions could do, to entertain away his notice of the lateness
of the hour, before the other gentlemen appeared. Mr. Weston was
chatty and convivial, and no friend to early separations of any sort;
but at last the drawing-room party did receive an augmentation.
Mr. Elton, in very good spirits, was one of the first to walk in.
Mrs. Weston and Emma were sitting together on a sofa. He joined
Emma |
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 Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: through the forest of the Far West. At this period of the year, when the
trees were dried up by a tropical heat, the forest caught fire
instantaneously, in such a manner that the conflagration extended itself
both by the trunks of the trees and by their higher branches, whose
interlacement favored its progress. It even appeared that the current of
flame spread more rapidly among the summits of the trees than the current
of lava at their bases.
Thus it happened that the wild animals, jaguars, wild boars, capybaras,
koalas, and game of every kind, mad with terror, had fled to the banks of
the Mercy and to the Tadorn Marsh, beyond the road to Port Balloon. But the
colonists were too much occupied with their task to pay any attention to
The Mysterious Island |
