| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: there a lagoon, more or less brackish, attracts the birds and
hunters. A rough, undergrowth partially conceals the sand. The
crouching, hardy live-oaks flourish singly or in thickets - the
kind of wood for murderers to crawl among - and here and there the
skirts of the forest extend downward from the hills with a floor of
turf and long aisles of pine-trees hung with Spaniard's Beard.
Through this quaint desert the railway cars drew near to Monterey
from the junction at Salinas City - though that and so many other
things are now for ever altered - and it was from here that you had
the first view of the old township lying in the sands, its white
windmills bickering in the chill, perpetual wind, and the first
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: passengers," being too obvious to allow the gendarme on duty--always a
friend to Pierrotin--to avoid the necessity of reporting this flagrant
violation of the ordinances. Thus on certain Saturday nights and
Monday mornings, Pierrotin's coucou "trundled" fifteen travellers; but
on such occasions, in order to drag it along, he gave his stout old
horse, called Rougeot, a mate in the person of a little beast no
bigger than a pony, about whose merits he had much to say. This little
horse was a mare named Bichette; she ate little, she was spirited, she
was indefatigable, she was worth her weight in gold.
"My wife wouldn't give her for that fat lazybones of a Rougeot!" cried
Pierrotin, when some traveller would joke him about his epitome of a
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: weeks before the factory closed, Marija had been cheated out of her
pay for three hundred cans. The girls worked at a long table,
and behind them walked a woman with pencil and notebook, keeping count
of the number they finished. This woman was, of course, only human,
and sometimes made mistakes; when this happened, there was no
redress--if on Saturday you got less money than you had earned,
you had to make the best of it. But Marija did not understand this,
and made a disturbance. Marija's disturbances did not mean anything,
and while she had known only Lithuanian and Polish, they had done no harm,
for people only laughed at her and made her cry. But now Marija was
able to call names in English, and so she got the woman who made the
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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 The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad: Mills and I exchanged but a few words as we walked down towards the
centre of the town. In the chill tempestuous dawn he strolled
along musingly, disregarding the discomfort of the cold, the
depressing influence of the hour, the desolation of the empty
streets in which the dry dust rose in whirls in front of us, behind
us, flew upon us from the side streets. The masks had gone home
and our footsteps echoed on the flagstones with unequal sound as of
men without purpose, without hope.
"I suppose you will come," said Mills suddenly.
"I really don't know," I said.
"Don't you? Well, remember I am not trying to persuade you; but I
The Arrow of Gold |
