| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: Doris, who turned alone to the dark and cried,--
They are blown away like windflung chords of music,
They drift away; the sudden music has died.
And one, with death in his eyes, comes walking slowly
And sees the shadow of death in many faces,
And thinks the world is strange.
He desires immortal music and spring forever,
And beauty that knows no change.
IX. CABARET
We sit together and talk, or smoke in silence.
You say (but use no words) 'this night is passing
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: entrenched behind the rocks, where they could fire with impunity on
the Republicans if the latter made any attempt to dislodge them.
While Hulot and his soldiers went slowly towards the little wood to
meet Gudin, the men from Fougeres busied themselves in rifling the
dead Chouans and dispatching those who still lived. In this fearful
war neither party took prisoners. The marquis having made good his
escape, the Chouans and the Blues mutually recognized their respective
positions and the uselessness of continuing the fight; so that both
sides prepared to retreat.
"Ha! ha!" cried one of the Fougeres men, busy about the bodies,
"here's a bird with yellow wings."
The Chouans |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare: All schooledaies friendship, child-hood innocence?
We Hermia, like two Artificiall gods,
Haue with our needles, created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key:
As if our hands, our sides, voices, and mindes
Had beene incorporate. So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet a vnion in partition,
Two louely berries molded on one stem,
So with two seeming bodies, but one heart,
A Midsummer Night's Dream |
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 Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs: received an answer that was most favorable. The terms were,
as usual, rather one-sided but Cassidy accepted them, and it
seemed before noon that a fight was assured.
Billy was more nearly happy again than he had been since
the day he had renounced Barbara Harding to the man he
thought she loved. He read and re-read the accounts in the
papers, and then searching for more references to himself off
the sporting page he ran upon the very name that had been
constantly in his thoughts for all these months--Harding.
Persistent rumor has it that the engagement of the beautiful
Miss Harding to Wm. J. Mallory has been broken. Miss
The Mucker |
