| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Options by O. Henry: couldn't believe him. And a month afterward I landed on the coast of
this Gaudymala with $1,300 that I had been saving up for five years.
I thought I knew what Indians liked, and I fixed myself accordingly.
I loaded down four pack-mules with red woollen blankets, wrought-iron
pails, jewelled side-combs for the ladies, glass necklaces, and
safety-razors. I hired a black mozo, who was supposed to be a mule-
driver and an interpreter too. It turned out that he could interpret
mules all right, but he drove the English language much too hard. His
name sounded like a Yale key when you push it in wrong side up, but I
called him McClintock, which was close to the noise.
"Well, this gold village was forty miles up in the mountains, and it
Options |
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: herself by catching one small shark, and had immediately ceased
to fish and devoted her attention to her fisherman and his line.
Philip had angled fiercely, landing trout, croakers, sheepshead,
snappers in bewildering luck. He had broken each hopeless
captive's neck savagely, as though they were personal enemies.
He did not look happy as they landed, though paeans of praise
were being sung in his honour.
As the days passed on, "the fisherman of the Pass" began to dance
attendance on Annette. What had seemed a joke became serious.
Aunt Nina, urged by Philip, remonstrated, and even the mamma of
the pink sunbonnet began to look grave. It was all very well for
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 Poems of William Blake by William Blake: Hovering and glittering on the air before the face of Thel.
O virgin know'st thou not our steeds drink of the golden springs
Where Luvah doth renew his horses: lookst thou on my youth.
And fearest thou because I vanish and am seen no more.
Nothing remains; O maid I tell thee, when I pass away.
It is to tenfold life, to love, to peace, and raptures holy:
Unseen descending, weigh my light wings upon balmy flowers:
And court the fair eyed dew, to take me to her shining tent
The weeping virgin, trembling kneels before the risen sun.
Till we arise link'd in a golden band and never part:
But walk united bearing food to all our tender flowers.
Poems of William Blake |
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 Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes: of Fez they call the Mudejars Elches, and they are the people the king
chiefly employs in war. To proceed: every time he passed with his
vessel he anchored in a cove that was not two crossbow shots from
the garden where Zoraida was waiting; and there the renegade, together
with the two Moorish lads that rowed, used purposely to station
himself, either going through his prayers, or else practising as a
part what he meant to perform in earnest. And thus he would go to
Zoraida's garden and ask for fruit, which her father gave him, not
knowing him; but though, as he afterwards told me, he sought to
speak to Zoraida, and tell her who he was, and that by my orders he
was to take her to the land of the Christians, so that she might
Don Quixote |
