| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rivers to the Sea by Sara Teasdale: Bed that has brought me ecstasy and sleep,
Floors that have borne me when a gale of joy
Lifted my soul and made me half a god.
Farewell! Across the threshold many feet
Shall pass, but never Sappho's feet again.
Girls shall come in whom love has made aware
Of all their swaying beauty--they shall sing,
RIVERS TO THE SEA
But never Sappho's voice, like golden fire,
Shall seek for heaven thru your echoing rafters.
There shall be swallows bringing back the spring
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Monster Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs: ran toward her stateroom. Behind her she heard the
commotion of many men descending the companionway.
As Number Thirteen came into the campong after quitting
the bungalow his heart was a chaos of conflicting
emotions. His little world had been wiped out.
His creator--the man whom he thought his only friend
and benefactor--had suddenly turned against him.
The beautiful creature he worshipped was either lost
or dead; Sing had said so. He was nothing but
a miserable THING. There was no place in the world for him,
and even should he again find Virginia Maxon, he had
The Monster Men |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: "Do thou' put on' a fri'-ar's coat',
And I'll' put on' a-no'-ther,
And we' will to' Queen Ele'anor go',
Like Fri'ar and' his bro'ther.
I met Mis'ess Yeobright, the young bride's aunt,
last night, and she told me that her son Clym was coming
home a' Christmas. Wonderful clever, 'a believe--ah, I
should like to have all that's under that young man's hair.
Well, then, I spoke to her in my well-known merry way,
and she said, 'O that what's shaped so venerable should
talk like a fool!'--that's what she said to me. I don't
Return of the Native |
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 My Antonia by Willa Cather: I've tried to tell them, but I leave out so much.'
They sat under a little oak, Tony resting against the trunk
and the other girls leaning against her and each other,
and listened to the little I was able to tell them about
Coronado and his search for the Seven Golden Cities.
At school we were taught that he had not got so far north as Nebraska,
but had given up his quest and turned back somewhere in Kansas.
But Charley Harling and I had a strong belief that he had been
along this very river. A farmer in the county north of ours,
when he was breaking sod, had turned up a metal stirrup of fine
workmanship, and a sword with a Spanish inscription on the blade.
My Antonia |
