| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry: End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of THE GIFT OF THE MAGI.
The Gift of the Magi |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: diverting, it may be very proper in this place. The case is this;
I was some years before at this place, at the latter end of the
year, viz., about the beginning of October, and lodging in a house
that looked into the churchyard, I observed in the evening, an
unusual multitude of birds sitting on the leads of the church.
Curiosity led me to go nearer to see what they were, and I found
they were all swallows; that there was such an infinite number that
they covered the whole roof of the church, and of several houses
near, and perhaps might of more houses which I did not see. This
led me to inquire of a grave gentleman whom I saw near me, what the
meaning was of such a prodigious multitude of swallows sitting
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: his arm a little, but the strength of the man was like an all-
pervading fluid, stealing through her veins, awakening under her
heart some nameless, unsuspected existence that had slumbered there
all these years and that went out through her throbbing fingertips
to his that answered. She wondered if the hoydenish blood of some
lawless ancestor, long asleep, were calling out in her tonight,
some drop of a hotter fluid that the centuries had failed to cool,
and why, if this curse were in her, it had not spoken before. But
was it a curse, this awakening, this wealth before undiscovered,
this music set free? For the first time in her life her heart held
something stronger than herself, was not this worthwhile? Then she
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
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 Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: carpet. But I heard the door of his study-bedroom close. He was
then sixty-two years old and had been for a quarter of a century
the wisest, the firmest, the most indulgent of guardians,
extending over me a paternal care and affection, a moral support
which I seemed to feel always near me in the most distant parts
of the earth.
As to Mr. Nicholas B., sub-lieutenant of 1808, lieutenant of 1813
in the French Army, and for a short time Officier d'Ordonnance of
Marshal Marmont; afterwards Captain in the 2nd Regiment of
Mounted Rifles in the Polish Army--such as it existed up to 1830
in the reduced kingdom established by the Congress of Vienna--I
Some Reminiscences |
