| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: him to tell her? She waited. Here is the letter:--
"MY FRIEND,--Why should I refuse to your brother in science the
help that I have lent you? All merits have equal rights in my
eyes; but you do not know the prejudices of those among whom I
live. We shall never make an aristocracy of ignorance understand
that intellect ennobles. If I have not sufficient influence to
compel them to accept M. David Sechard, I am quite willing to
sacrifice the worthless creatures to you. It would be a perfect
hecatomb in the antique manner. But, dear friend, you would not,
of course, ask me to leave them all in exchange for the society of
a person whose character and manner might not please me. I know
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Awakening & Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin: boy.
He went out to a neighboring cigar stand to purchase cigarette
papers, and when he came back he found that Celestine had served
the black coffee in the parlor.
"Perhaps I shouldn't have come back," he said. "When you are
tired of me, tell me to go."
"You never tire me. You must have forgotten the hours and
hours at Grand Isle in which we grew accustomed to each other and
used to being together."
"I have forgotten nothing at Grand Isle," he said, not looking
at her, but rolling a cigarette. His tobacco pouch, which he laid
Awakening & Selected Short Stories |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: may be compared to the pleasure experienced in roving
through nature at large, inhaling the sweet gale natural to the
clime; while the reveries of a feverish imagination continually
sport themselves in gardens full of aromatic shrubs, which cloy
while they delight, and weaken the sense of pleasure they gratify.
The heaven of fancy, below or beyond the stars, in this life, or
in those ever-smiling regions surrounded by the unmarked ocean of
futurity, have an insipid uniformity which palls. Poets have
imagined scenes of bliss; but, sencing out sorrow, all the extatic
emotions of the Soul, and even its grandeur, seem to be equally
excluded. We dose over the unruffled lake, and long to scale the
|
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 Bucky O'Connor by William MacLeod Raine: out, like as not they would come by the mesa," he sputtered.
"What time is it, Webb?" asked his wife. scarcely less excited.
He had to look again, so absent-minded had been his last glance
at the watch. "Nine-fifteen. Why didn't I telephone to Rogers and
ask him to find out which way they were coming? Sometimes I'm
mighty thick-headed."
As Mackenzie had guessed, the party was winding its way through
the Box Canyon at that time of speaking. Bucky and Frances led
the way, followed by Henderson and the vaquero whom Mackenzie had
telephoned to guide them from Aravaipa.
"I reckon this night was made for us, Curly Haid. Even good old
|
