| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: Floats like a battle-flag over the city wall.
From trellised balconies, languid and luminous
Faces gleam, veiled in a splendour voluminous.
Leisurely elephants wind through the winding lanes,
Swinging their silver bells hung from their silver chains.
Round the high Char Minar sounds of gay cavalcades
Blend with the music of cymbals and serenades.
Over the city bridge Night comes majestical,
Borne like a queen to a sumptuous festival.
STREET CRIES
When dawn's first cymbals beat upon the sky,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: enlivened by the entrance of some customers into the next compartment,
and the starting of the mechanical tell-tale of monies received,
which emitted a ting-ting every time a coin was put in.
The barmaid attending to this compartment was invisible
to Jude's direct glance, though a reflection of her back
in the glass behind her was occasionally caught by his eyes.
He had only observed this listlessly, when she turned
her face for a moment to the glass to set her hair tidy.
Then he was amazed to discover that the face was Arabella's.
If she had come on to his compartment she would have seen him.
But she did not, this being presided over by the maiden on the other side.
Jude the Obscure |
