| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Young Forester by Zane Grey: The campfire gradually burned out, and the white glow changed to red. One
of the men snored in a way that sounded like a wheezy whistle. Coyotes
howled in the woods, and the longer I listened to the long, strange howls
the better I liked them. The roar in the wind had died down to a moaning. I
thought of myself lying there, with my skin prickling and my eyes sharp on
the darkening forms. I thought of the nights I had spent with Hal in the
old woods at home. How full the present seemed! My breast swelled, my hand
gripped my revolver, my eyes pierced the darkness, and I would not have
been anywhere else for the world.
Greaser smoked out his cigarette, and began to nod. That was the signal for
me. I crawled noiselessly from the tree. When I found myself going down
The Young Forester |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Falk by Joseph Conrad: heard passing between the languid skeletons that
drifted endlessly to and fro, north and south, east
and west, upon that carcase of a ship.
And in this lies the grotesque horror of this som-
bre story. The last extremity of sailors, overtaking
a small boat or a frail craft, seems easier to bear,
because of the direct danger of the seas. The con-
fined space, the close contact, the imminent menace
of the waves, seem to draw men together, in spite
of madness, suffering and despair. But there was
a ship--safe, convenient, roomy: a ship with beds,
Falk |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare: Till, breathless, he disjoin'd, and backward drew
The heavenly moisture, that sweet coral mouth,
Whose precious taste her thirsty lips well knew,
Whereon they surfeit, yet complain on drouth: 544
He with her plenty press'd, she faint with dearth,
Their lips together glu'd, fall to the earth.
Now quick desire hath caught the yielding prey,
And glutton-like she feeds, yet never filleth; 548
Her lips are conquerors, his lips obey,
Paying what ransom the insulter willeth;
Whose vulture thought doth pitch the price so high,
|
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 Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: one after the other, and tried all together to scramble on to my knee.
The April baby got the knee as she always seems to get everything,
and the other two had to sit on the grass.
I began about Adam and Eve, with an eye to future parsonic probings.
The April baby's eyes opened wider and wider, and her face grew redder
and redder. I was surprised at the breathless interest she took in the story--
the other two were tearing up tufts of grass and hardly listening.
I had scarcely got to the angels with the flaming swords and announced
that that was all, when she burst out, "Now I'll tell about it.
Once upon a time there was Adam and Eva, and they had plenty of clothes,
and there was no snake, and lieber Gott wasn't angry with them,
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
