| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Before Adam by Jack London: hunting animals by going back and forth between the two
caves.
I had forgotten the wild dogs. They were small enough
to go through any passage that I could squeeze through.
One night they nosed me out. Had they entered both
caves at the same time they would have got me. As it
was, followed by some of them through the passage, I
dashed out the mouth of the other cave. Outside were
the rest of the wild dogs. They sprang for me as I
sprang for the cliff-wall and began to climb. One of
them, a lean and hungry brute, caught me in mid-leap.
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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 Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: glowing accounts of the money to be had almost for the asking.
When one's blood leaps for new scenes, new adventures, and one
needs money, what is the use of frittering away time alternately
between the Bayou Teche and New Orleans? Sylves' had brooded all
summer, and now that September had come, he was determined to go.
Louisette, the orphan, the girl-lover, whom everyone in Franklin
knew would some day be Ma'am Mouton's daughter-in-law, wept and
pleaded in vain. Sylves' kissed her quivering lips.
"Ma chere," he would say, "t'ink, I will bring you one fine
diamon' ring, nex' spring, when de bayou overflows again."
Louisette would fain be content with this promise. As for Ma'am
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
| 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 precipice and the river bank there was a narrow path covered by the
fragments of fallen rock. And upon the summit of the precipice a kippersol
tree grew, whose palm-like leaves were clearly cut out against the night
sky. The rocks cast a deep shadow, and the willow trees, on either side of
the river. She paused, looked up and about her, and then ran on, fearful.
"What was I afraid of? How foolish I have been!" she said, when she came
to a place where the trees were not so close together. And she stood still
and looked back and shivered.
At last her steps grew wearier and wearier. She was very sleepy now, she
could scarcely lift her feet. She stepped out of the river-bed. She only
saw that the rocks about her were wild, as though many little kopjes had
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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 Turn of the Screw by Henry James: roommate unmistakably slept, and, stealing out, took noiseless turns
in the passage and even pushed as far as to where I had last met Quint.
But I never met him there again; and I may as well say at once
that I on no other occasion saw him in the house. I just missed,
on the staircase, on the other hand, a different adventure.
Looking down it from the top I once recognized the presence of a woman
seated on one of the lower steps with her back presented to me,
her body half-bowed and her head, in an attitude of woe, in her hands.
I had been there but an instant, however, when she vanished without
looking round at me. I knew, nonetheless, exactly what dreadful face
she had to show; and I wondered whether, if instead of being above I had
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