| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: lacks the mother's instinctive knowledge when and how to be severe;
she has no sudden warnings, none of the uneasy presentiments of the
mother's heart; for a mother, bound to her child from the beginnings
of life by all the fibres of her being, still is conscious of the
communication, still vibrates with the shock of every trouble, and
thrills with every joy in the child's life as if it were her own. If
Nature has made of woman, physically speaking, a neutral ground, it
has not been forbidden to her, under certain conditions, to identify
herself completely with her offspring. When she has not merely given
life, but given of her whole life, you behold that wonderful,
unexplained, and inexplicable thing--the love of a woman for one of
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: would of the confusion of ants in a nest against which his
foot has kicked. When, half suffocated, I raised my head
above water, the Martian's hood pointed at the batteries that
were still firing across the river, and as it advanced it swung
loose what must have been the generator of the Heat-Ray.
In another moment it was on the bank, and in a stride wad-
ing halfway across. The knees of its foremost legs bent at
the farther bank, and in another moment it had raised itself
to its full height again, close to the village of Shepperton.
Forthwith the six guns which, unknown to anyone on the
right bank, had been hidden behind the outskirts of that
War of the Worlds |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber: windows festooned with dust webs. Some of them boasted high
detached tower-like structures where a secret acid process
went on. In the early days the mills had employed many
workers, but newly invented machinery had come to take the
place of hand labor. The rag-rooms alone still employed
hundreds of girls who picked, sorted, dusted over the great
suction bins. The rooms in which they worked were gray with
dust. They wore caps over their hair to protect it from the
motes that you could see spinning and swirling in the watery
sunlight that occasionally found its way through the gray-
filmed window panes. It never seemed to occur to them that
Fanny Herself |
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 Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
The daisies grow.
All her bright golden hair
Tarnished with rust,
She that was young and fair
Fallen to dust.
Lily-like, white as snow,
She hardly knew
She was a woman, so
Sweetly she grew.
|
