| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde: no son of thine to do thy bidding.'
'Thou speakest truly,' answered the Wood-cutter, 'yet did I show
thee pity when I found thee in the forest.'
And when the woman heard these words she gave a loud cry, and fell
into a swoon. And the Woodcutter carried her to his own house, and
his wife had care of her, and when she rose up from the swoon into
which she had fallen, they set meat and drink before her, and bade
her have comfort.
But she would neither eat nor drink, but said to the Woodcutter,
'Didst thou not say that the child was found in the forest? And
was it not ten years from this day?'
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: away Proserpina, in order that he might have something to love,
instead of cheating his heart any longer with this tiresome
magnificence. And, though he pretended to dislike the sunshine
of the upper world, yet the effect of the child's presence,
bedimmed as she was by her tears, was as if a faint and watery
sunbeam had somehow or other found its way into the enchanted
hall.
Pluto now summoned his domestics, and bade them lose no time in
preparing a most sumptuous banquet, and above all things, not
to fail of setting a golden beaker of the water of Lethe by
Proserpina's plate.
Tanglewood Tales |
