| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: if he would see the maid it can do no harm, for such harm as there
is has been done already. Now for your answer.'
Squire Bozard thought a while, then said:
'The lad is a brave lad though he shall be no son-in-law of mine.
He is going far, and mayhap will return no more, and I do not wish
that he should think unkindly of me when I am dead. Go without,
Thomas Wingfield, and stand under yonder beech--Lily shall join you
there and you may speak with her for the half of an hour--no more.
See to it that you keep within sight of the window. Nay, no
thanks; go before I change my mind.'
So I went and waited under the beech with a beating heart, and
Montezuma's Daughter |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Out of Time's Abyss by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Heinz and Klatz, possibly influenced by their exhortation, were
putting up but a half-hearted resistance; but Dietz, a huge,
bearded, bull-necked Prussian, yelling like a maniac, sought to
exterminate the Englische schweinhunde with his bayonet,
fearing to fire his piece lest he kill some of his comrades.
It was Olson who engaged him, and though unused to the long
German rifle and bayonet, he met the bull-rush of the Hun with
the cold, cruel precision and science of English bayonet-fighting.
There was no feinting, no retiring and no parrying that was not
also an attack. Bayonet-fighting today is not a pretty thing to
see--it is not an artistic fencing-match in which men give and
Out of Time's Abyss |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: The tired chestnut dropped into a walk; and the
rim of the sun, all red in a speckless sky, touched
familiarly the smooth top of a ploughed rise near
the road as I had seen it times innumerable touch
the distant horizon of the sea. The uniform
brownness of the harrowed field glowed with a rosy
tinge, as though the powdered clods had sweated
out in minute pearls of blood the toil of uncounted
ploughmen. From the edge of a copse a waggon
with two horses was rolling gently along the ridge.
Raised above our heads upon the sky-line, it loomed
Amy Foster |
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 A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: I was hungry enough for literature to want to take
down the whole paper at this one meal, but I got only
a few bites, and then had to postpone, because the
monks around me besieged me so with eager ques-
tions: What is this curious thing? What is it for? Is
it a handkerchief? -- saddle blanket? -- part of a shirt?
What is it made of? How thin it is, and how dainty
and frail; and how it rattles. Will it wear, do you
think, and won't the rain injure it? Is it writing that
appears on it, or is it only ornamentation? They sus-
pected it was writing, because those among them who
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
