| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: search at last, she, the quietest and most bashful of the lot,
was being initiated into the mysteries of "what life is."
Down Bourbon Street and on Toulouse and St. Peter Streets there
are quaint little old-world places where one may be disguised
effectually for a tiny consideration. Thither, guided by the
shapely Mephisto and guarded by the team of jockeys and ballet
girls, tripped Flo. Into one of the lowest-ceiled, dingiest, and
most ancient-looking of these shops they stepped.
"A disguise for the demoiselle," announced Mephisto to the woman
who met them. She was small and wizened and old, with yellow,
flabby jaws, a neck like the throat of an alligator, and
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: understand. And here were two stoves--one for the cooking, and the
other in the living-room for the warming, both of the newest.
"An' look dat roof. Dat's lak' we make dem in Canada. De rain ron
off easy, and de sun not shine too strong at de door. Ain't dat
nice? You lak' dat roof, Ma'amselle Serene, hein?"
Thus the imagination of Jacques unfolded itself, and his ambition
appeared to be making plans for its accomplishment. I do not want
any one to suppose that there was a crisis in his affair of the
heart. There was none. Indeed, it is very doubtful whether anybody
in the village, even Serena herself, ever dreamed that there was
such an affair. Up to the point when the house was finished and
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: courtesy of her manner, that I do not think--save for that moment at the
window-sill--I could have been sure what she thought, or how much she
noticed. Her face was always so pale, it may well have been all
imagination with me that she seemed, when we emerged at last into the
light of the street, paler than usual; but I am almost certain that her
hand was trembling as she stood receiving the thanks of the party. These
thanks were cut a little short by the arrival of one of the automobiles,
and, at the same time, the appearance of Hortense strolling toward us
with John Mayrant.
Charley had resumed to Bohm, "A tax of twenty-five cents on the ton is
nothing with deposits of this richness," when his voice ceased; and
|
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 Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: bodies of fish, innumerable fish, fleeing towards shore. The
farther you advance, the more thickly you will feel them come;
and above you and around you, to right and left, others will leap
and fall so swiftly as to daze the sight, like intercrossing
fountain-jets of fluid silver. The gulls fly lower about you,
circling with sinister squeaking cries;--perhaps for an instant
your feet touch in the deep something heavy, swift, lithe, that
rushes past with a swirling shock. Then the fear of the Abyss,
the vast and voiceless Nightmare of the Sea, will come upon you;
the silent panic of all those opaline millions that flee
glimmering by will enter into you also...
|
