| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: did certainly."
"The reason of that is." she said eagerly, " that he goes
in privately by the old tower door, just when the service
commences, and sits at the back of the gallery. He
told me so."
This supreme instance of Troy's goodness fell upon
Gabriel ears like the thirteenth stroke of crazy clock.
It was not only received with utter incredulity as re-
garded itself, but threw a doubt on all the assurances
that had preceded it.
Oak was grieved to find how entirely she trusted him.
Far From the Madding Crowd |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: the Old Hebrew God, cries out, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
Only then, when there comes a pause, a blank in your life, when the old
idol is broken, when the old hope is dead, when the old desire is crushed,
then the Divine compensation of Nature is made manifest. She shows herself
to you. So near she draws you, that the blood seems to flow from her to
you, through a still uncut cord: you feel the throb of her life.
When that day comes, that you sit down broken, without one human creature
to whom you cling, with your loves the dead and the living-dead; when the
very thirst for knowledge through long-continued thwarting has grown dull;
when in the present there is no craving, and in the future no hope, then,
oh, with a beneficent tenderness, Nature infolds you.
|
