| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from O Pioneers! by Willa Cather: feel as if there were nothing to go ahead for."
"Does your father know?"
"Yes, I think he does. He lies and counts
on his fingers all day. I think he is trying to
count up what he is leaving for us. It's a com-
fort to him that my chickens are laying right
on through the cold weather and bringing in a
little money. I wish we could keep his mind off
such things, but I don't have much time to be
O Pioneers! |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: by their dexterity in that art, might not arrive at great riches,
and sometimes keep our very nobles in dependence, as well as
habituate them to vile companions, wholly take them from the
improvement of their minds, and force them, by the losses they
received, to learn and practise that infamous dexterity upon
others?"
He was perfectly astonished with the historical account gave him
of our affairs during the last century; protesting "it was only a
heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres,
revolutions, banishments, the very worst effects that avarice,
faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness,
Gulliver's Travels |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: memory cruelly retraced the fatal truth, minute by minute. He
distinctly saw the purse lying on the green cloth; but then,
doubtful no longer, he excused Adelaide, telling himself that
persons in misfortune should not be so hastily condemned. There
was, of course, some secret behind this apparently degrading
action. He would not admit that that proud and noble face was a
lie.
At the same time the wretched rooms rose before him, denuded of
the poetry of love which beautifies everything; he saw them dirty
and faded, regarding them as emblematic of an inner life devoid
of honor, idle and vicious. Are not our feelings written, as it
|
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 Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: was troubled, he would make daily inquiries and daily pay him a visit,
entering the sick-room with a facetious and appalling countenance,
letting off a few perfunctory jests, and going again swiftly, to the
patient's relief. Once, a court holiday falling opportunely, my lord
had his carriage, and drove the child himself to Hermiston, the
customary place of convalescence. It is conceivable he had been more
than usually anxious, for that journey always remained in Archie's
memory as a thing apart, his father having related to him from beginning
to end, and with much detail, three authentic murder cases. Archie went
the usual round of other Edinburgh boys, the high school and the
college; and Hermiston looked on, or rather looked away, with scarce an
|
