| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov: come running up immediately on hearing his
name.
It was already late and dark when I opened
the window again and began to call Maksim
Maksimych, saying that it was time to go to
bed. He muttered something through his
teeth. I repeated my invitation -- he made no
answer.
I left a candle on the stove-seat, and, wrapping
myself up in my cloak, I lay down on the couch
and soon fell into slumber; and I would have
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: this question must be found in the now-familiar fact that
the earliest peoples felt themselves so much a part of
Nature and the animal and vegetable world around them
that (whenever they thought about these matters at all)
they never for a moment doubted that the things which
were happening all round them in the external world were
also happening within themselves. They saw the Sun,
overclouded and nigh to death in winter, come to its birth
again each year; they saw the Vegetation shoot forth
anew in spring--the revival of the spirit of the Earth;
the endless breeding of the Animals, the strange
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: the mantel. At every footstep upon the asphalt sidewalk her smooth,
round chin would cease for a moment its regular rise and fall, and a
frown of listening would pucker her pretty brows.
At last she heard the latch of the iron gate click. She sprang up,
tripped softly to the mirror, where she made a few of those feminine,
flickering passes at her front hair and throat which are warranted to
hypnotize the approaching guest.
The door-bell rang. Miss Katie, in her haste, turned the blaze of the
lamp lower instead of higher, and hastened noiselessly down stairs
into the hall. She turned the key, the door opened, and Mr. Tansey
side-stepped in.
|
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 Jungle by Upton Sinclair: what for--whether or not his victim might be dead, and if so, what
they would do with him. Hang him, perhaps, or beat him to death--
nothing would have surprised Jurgis, who knew little of the laws.
Yet he had picked up gossip enough to have it occur to him that
the loud-voiced man upon the bench might be the notorious Justice
Callahan, about whom the people of Packingtown spoke with bated breath.
"Pat" Callahan--"Growler" Pat, as he had been known before he
ascended the bench--had begun life as a butcher boy and a bruiser
of local reputation; he had gone into politics almost as soon as
he had learned to talk, and had held two offices at once before
he was old enough to vote. If Scully was the thumb, Pat Callahan
|
