| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Wyoming by William MacLeod Raine: with admiration of their boss, but they ain't presumptuous enough
to expaict any more. I had notions, mebbe, I'd cut more ice, me
being not afflicted with bashfulness. My notions faded, ma'am, in
about a week."
"Then Nora came?" she laughed.
"No, ma'am, they had gone glimmering long before she arrived. I
was just convalescent enough to need being cheered up when she
drapped in."
"And are you cheered up yet?" his mistress asked.
He took off his dusty hat and scratched his head. "I ain't right
certain, yet, ma'am. Soon as I know I'm consoled, I'll be round
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne: The detective had remained behind.
Several hours passed. The weather was dismal, and it was very cold.
Fix sat motionless on a bench in the station; he might have been
thought asleep. Aouda, despite the storm, kept coming out
of the waiting-room, going to the end of the platform,
and peering through the tempest of snow, as if to pierce
the mist which narrowed the horizon around her, and to hear,
if possible, some welcome sound. She heard and saw nothing.
Then she would return, chilled through, to issue out again
after the lapse of a few moments, but always in vain.
Evening came, and the little band had not returned. Where could they be?
Around the World in 80 Days |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from When the Sleeper Wakes by H. G. Wells: to hear of a vast repose, and yet these concrete
centuries defeated him.
"Two hundred years," he said again, with the figure
of a great gulf opening very slowly in his mind; and
then, "Oh, but--!"
They said nothing.
"You--did you say--? "
"Two hundred years. Two centuries of years,"
said the man with the red beard.
There was a pause. Graham looked at their faces
and saw that what he had heard was indeed true.
When the Sleeper Wakes |
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 Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: he, no doubt, who early the following morning had
been seen lying (in a swoon, I should say) on the
roadside grass by the Brenzett carrier, who actually
got down to have a nearer look, but drew back, in-
timidated by the perfect immobility, and by some-
thing queer in the aspect of that tramp, sleeping
so still under the showers. As the day advanced,
some children came dashing into school at Norton
in such a fright that the schoolmistress went out
and spoke indignantly to a 'horrid-looking man'
on the road. He edged away, hanging his head,
Amy Foster |
