| 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: Confound you, Jack, you're all right!"
Gilbert returned to the room where Nevada waited.
"My old friend, Jack Peyton, and his sister were to have been here at
a quarter to twelve," he explained; "but Jack is so confoundedly slow.
I've just 'phoned them to hurry. They'll be here in a few minutes.
I'm the happiest man in the world, Nevada! What did you do with the
letter I sent you to-day ?"
"I've got it cinched here," said Nevada, pulling it out from beneath
her opera-cloak.
Gilbert drew the letter from the envelope and looked it over
carefully. Then he looked at Nevada thoughtfully.
Options |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: And many will witness to my words.
Now do you really imagine that I could have survived all these years, if I
had led a public life, supposing that like a good man I had always
maintained the right and had made justice, as I ought, the first thing? No
indeed, men of Athens, neither I nor any other man. But I have been always
the same in all my actions, public as well as private, and never have I
yielded any base compliance to those who are slanderously termed my
disciples, or to any other. Not that I have any regular disciples. But if
any one likes to come and hear me while I am pursuing my mission, whether
he be young or old, he is not excluded. Nor do I converse only with those
who pay; but any one, whether he be rich or poor, may ask and answer me and
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: -- But who is that on the other side of you?
What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only 370
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
The Waste Land |
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 Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: somnambulistic torpor. The processions of Corpus-Christi Day seemed to
wake her up. She visited the neighbours to beg for candlesticks and
mats so as to adorn the temporary altars in the street.
In church, she always gazed at the Holy Ghost, and noticed that there
was something about it that resembled a parrot. The likenesses
appeared even more striking on a coloured picture by Espinal,
representing the baptism of our Saviour. With his scarlet wings and
emerald body, it was really the image of Loulou. Having bought the
picture, she hung it near the one of the Comte d'Artois so that she
could take them in at one glance.
They associated in her mind, the parrot becoming sanctified through
A Simple Soul |
