| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Awakening & Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin: might even invent a pretext now for going. But Edna did not go.
With an inward agony, with a flaming, outspoken revolt against
the ways of Nature, she witnessed the scene of torture.
She was still stunned and speechless with emotion when later
she leaned over her friend to kiss her and softly say good-by.
Adele, pressing her cheek, whispered in an exhausted voice:
"Think of the children, Edna. Oh think of the children! Remember them!"
XXXVIII
Edna still felt dazed when she got outside in the open air.
The Doctor's coupe had returned for him and stood before the
porte cochere. She did not wish to enter the coupe, and told
Awakening & Selected Short Stories |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Poems by Bronte Sisters: Its green boughs in the breezy sky.
"But, I'll not fear, I will not weep
For those whose bodies rest in sleep,--
I know there is a blessed shore,
Opening its ports for me and mine;
And, gazing Time's wide waters o'er,
I weary for that land divine,
Where we were born, where you and I
Shall meet our dearest, when we die;
From suffering and corruption free,
Restored into the Deity."
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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 Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: The younger woman's face was covered with her hands. "Oh, it's so
terrible, so dark! and I shall go on living year after year, always in this
awful pain! Oh, if I could only die!"
The older woman stood looking into the fire; then slowly and measuredly she
said, "There are times, in life, when everything seems dark, when the brain
reels, and we cannot see that there is anything but death. But, if we wait
long enough, after long, long years, calm comes. It may be we cannot say
it was well; but we are contented, we accept the past. The struggle is
ended. That day may come for you, perhaps sooner than you think." She
spoke slowly and with difficulty.
"No, it can never come for me. If once I have loved a thing, I love it for
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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 Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: depth as well as in diameter and become roomy abodes, similar to
those of the grandmothers. In both, we find the owner and her
family, the latter sometimes already hatched and sometimes still
enclosed in the satin wallet.
Seeing no digging-tools, such as the excavation of the dwelling
seemed to me to require, I wondered whether the Lycosa might not
avail herself of some chance gallery, the work of the Cicada or the
Earth-worm. This ready-made tunnel, thought I, must shorten the
labours of the Spider, who appears to be so badly off for tools;
she would only have to enlarge it and put it in order. I was
wrong: the burrow is excavated, from start to finish, by her
The Life of the Spider |
