| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: eastern wall, like a tide rising as the moon declined. Now it
reached the mantel-shelf and overflowed the bronze heads of Homer
and the Indian Bacchus and the Egyptian image of Isis with the
infant Horus. Now it touched the frame of the picture and lapped
over the edge. Now it rose to the shadowy house and the dim garden,
in the midst of which I saw the white blot more distinctly than ever
before.
It seemed now to have taken a new shape, like the slender form of a
woman, robed in flowing white. And as I watched it through half-
closed eyes, the figure appeared to move and tremble and wave to and
fro, as if it were a ghost.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: rich with old carving, and others in common garden pots; some
crept serpent-like along the ground or climbed on high, using
whatever means of ascent was offered them. One plant had wreathed
itself round a statue of Vertumnus, which was thus quite veiled
and shrouded in a drapery of hanging foliage, so happily arranged
that it might have served a sculptor for a study.
While Giovanni stood at the window he heard a rustling behind a
screen of leaves, and became aware that a person was at work in
the garden. His figure soon emerged into view, and showed itself
to be that of no common laborer, but a tall, emaciated, sallow,
and sickly-looking man, dressed in a scholar's garb of black. He
Mosses From An Old Manse |
