| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton: in the springtime, and golden in summer. Near
its banks, or closer to the protecting Mission--on
whose land grant they were built--were the com-
fortable adobe homes of the few Spanish pioneers
that preferred the bracing north to the monotonous
warmth of the south. Some of these houses were
long and rambling, others built about a court; all
were surrounded by a high wall, enclosing a gar-
den where the Castilian roses grew even more lux-
uriantly than at the Presidio. The walls, like the
houses, were white, and on those of Don Juan
Rezanov |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: soldiers carrying a basket between them, who winked to each other
as he went by, and slily pointed to their throats; the spruce
serjeant who hurried past with a cane in his hand, and under his
arm a clasped book with a vellum cover; the fellows in the ground-
floor rooms, furbishing and brushing up their different articles of
dress, who stopped to look at him, and whose voices as they spoke
together echoed loudly through the empty galleries and passages;--
everything, down to the stand of muskets before the guard-house,
and the drum with a pipe-clayed belt attached, in one corner,
impressed itself upon his observation, as though he had noticed
them in the same place a hundred times, or had been a whole day
Barnaby Rudge |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Dust by Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman-Julius: let me alone."
The shattering anguish in his mother's voice startled Martin,
stirred within him tumultuous, veiled sensations. He was
unaccustomed to seeing her show suffering, and it embarrassed
him. Restless and uncomfortable, he was glad when his father
called him to help decide where to dig the grave, and fell the
timber from which to make a rough box. From time to time, through
the long night, he could not avoid observing his mother. In the
white moonlight, she and Benny looked as if they had been carved
from stone. Dawn was breaking over them when Wade, surrendering
to a surge of pity, put his arms around her with awkward
|
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 Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence: there be?
For Connie had adopted the standard of the young: what there was in the
moment was everything. And moments followed one another without
necessarily belonging to one another.
It was in her second winter at Wragby her father said to her: 'I hope,
Connie, you won't let circumstances force you into being a
demi-vierge.'
'A demi-vierge!' replied Connie vaguely. 'Why? Why not?'
'Unless you like it, of course!' said her father hastily. To Clifford
he said the same, when the two men were alone: 'I'm afraid it doesn't
quite suit Connie to be a demi-vierge.'
Lady Chatterley's Lover |
