| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast
pendulum. Then all at once, with terrible suddenness, the
light about him shot upward with the noise of a loud splash;
a frightful roaring was in his ears, and all was cold and
dark. The power of thought was restored; he knew that the
rope had broken and he had fallen into the stream. There was
no additional strangulation; the noose about his neck
was already suffocating him and kept the water from his
lungs. To die of hanging at the bottom of a river! -- the
idea seemed to him ludicrous. He opened his eyes in the
darkness and saw above him a gleam of light, but how distant,
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
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 Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: felt a sympathy betwixt himself and her.
"No, Cadmus," said the same voice that had spoken to him in the
field of the armed men, "this is not that dear sister Europa
whom you have sought so faithfully all over the wide world.
This is Harmonia, a daughter of the sky, who is given you
instead of sister, and brothers, and friend, and mother. You
will find all those dear ones in her alone."
So King Cadmus dwelt in the palace, with his new friend
Harmonia, and found a great deal of comfort in his magnificent
abode, but would doubtless have found as much, if not more, in
the humblest cottage by the wayside. Before many years went by,
Tanglewood Tales |
