| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Underground City by Jules Verne: four corpses, perhaps!
"James Starr!" exclaimed Sir William Elphiston.
"Harry! Harry!" cried Ryan, throwing himself down beside his friend.
It was indeed the engineer, Madge, Simon, and Harry Ford who were
lying there motionless. But one of the bodies moved slightly,
and Madge's voice was heard faintly murmuring, "See to the others!
help them first!"
Sir William, Jack, and their companions endeavored to reanimate
the engineer and his friends by getting them to swallow a few drops
of brandy. They very soon succeeded. The unfortunate people,
shut up in that dark cavern for ten days, were dying of starvation.
|
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 Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy: all about it, and in telling it to their neighbors added their
own versions of the story, with the usual exaggeration. Meeting
in the pasture-ground, they proceeded to quarrel with Gavryl's
women. They related how the latter's daughter-in-law had
threatened to secure the influence of the manager of a certain
noble's estate in behalf of his friend Gavryl; also that the
school-teacher was writing a petition to the Czar himself against
Ivan, explaining in detail his theft of the perchbolt and partial
destruction of Gavryl's garden--declaring that half of Ivan's
land was to be given to them.
Ivan listened calmly to their stories, but his anger was soon
The Kreutzer Sonata |
