| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: They let him in, and suddenly he sees that they are robbers. Or,
better still, he is taken into a big manor-house, where, learning
who he is, they give him food and drink, play to him on the
piano, listen to his complaints, and the daughter of the house, a
beauty, falls in love with him.
Absorbed in his bitterness and such thoughts, young Shiryaev
walked on and on. Far, far ahead he saw the inn, a dark patch
against the grey background of cloud. Beyond the inn, on the very
horizon, he could see a little hillock; this was the
railway-station. That hillock reminded him of the connection
existing between the place where he was now standing and Moscow,
|
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 Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane: could see the forms of men throwing black
shadows in the red light, and as he went nearer
it became known to him in some way that the
ground was strewn with sleeping men.
Of a sudden he confronted a black and
monstrous figure. A rifle barrel caught some
glinting beams. "Halt! halt!" He was dis-
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mayed for a moment, but he presently thought
that he recognized the nervous voice. As he
stood tottering before the rifle barrel, he called
 The Red Badge of Courage |