| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Awakening & Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin: The afternoon was intensely interesting to her. The
excitement came back upon her like a remittent fever. Her talk
grew familiar and confidential. It was no labor to become intimate
with Arobin. His manner invited easy confidence. The preliminary
stage of becoming acquainted was one which he always endeavored to
ignore when a pretty and engaging woman was concerned.
He stayed and dined with Edna. He stayed and sat beside the
wood fire. They laughed and talked; and before it was time to go
he was telling her how different life might have been if he had
known her years before. With ingenuous frankness he spoke of what
a wicked, ill-disciplined boy he had been, and impulsively drew up
Awakening & Selected Short Stories |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: not the private individual, for he is always overpowered; and as one who is
already prostrate cannot be overthrown, and only he who is standing upright
but not he who is prostrate can be laid prostrate, so the force of
circumstances can only overpower him who, at some time or other, has
resources, and not him who is at all times helpless. The descent of a
great storm may make the pilot helpless, or the severity of the season the
husbandman or the physician; for the good may become bad, as another poet
witnesses:--
'The good are sometimes good and sometimes bad.'
But the bad does not become bad; he is always bad. So that when the force
of circumstances overpowers the man of resources and skill and virtue, then
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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 Finished by H. Rider Haggard: delivered to me, assuring them also that in Zululand they would
come to no harm.
It was curious to watch the meeting between Heda and Nombe. The
doctoress appeared just as we had risen from breakfast, and Heda,
turning round, came face to face with her.
Is this your witch, Mr. Quatermain?" she asked me in her
vivacious way. "Why, she is different from what I expected,
quite good-looking and, yes, impressive. I am not sure that she
does not frighten me a little."
"What does the Inkosikaasi (i.e., the chieftainess) say
concerning me, Macumazahn?" asked Nombe.
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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 When the World Shook by H. Rider Haggard: above the fires of that pit."
"Perhaps you are right," said Bastin; "at least, I admit that
you have made matters very difficult by your unjustifiable
homicide of that priest who I do not think meant to injure you
seriously, and really was not at all a bad fellow, though
opinionated in some ways. Also, I do not suppose that anybody is
expected, as it were, to run his head into the martyr's crown.
When it settles there of itself it is another matter."
"Like a butterfly!" exclaimed the enraged Bickley.
"Yes, if you like to put it that way, though the simile seems a
very poor one; like a sunbeam would be better."
When the World Shook |
