| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson: from a 1905 printing of the 1897 edition.]
The Children of the Night
A Book of Poems by Edwin Arlington Robinson
To the Memory of my Father and Mother
Contents
The Children of the Night
Three Quatrains
The World
An Old Story
Ballade of a Ship
Ballade by the Fire
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Underground City by Jules Verne: Starr had heard nothing of him. It was after ten years of separation
that he got this letter from Simon Ford, requesting him to take without
delay the road to the old Aberfoyle colliery.
A communication of an interesting nature, what could it be?
Dochart pit. Yarrow shaft! What recollections of the past
these names brought back to him! Yes, that was a fine time,
that of work, of struggle,--the best part of the engineer's life.
Starr re-read his letter. He pondered over it in all its bearings.
He much regretted that just a line more had not been added
by Ford. He wished he had not been quite so laconic.
Was it possible that the old foreman had discovered some
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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 The Reef by Edith Wharton: of your really meaning what you said to me yesterday."
She did not ask him to what he referred, and he saw that her
parting words to him lived as vividly in her memory as in
his.
"Is it so important that you should be sure?" she finally
questioned.
"Not to you, naturally," he returned with involuntary
asperity. It was incredible, yet it was a fact, that for
the moment his immediate purpose in seeking to speak to her
was lost under a rush of resentment at counting for so
little in her fate. Of what stuff, then, was his feeling
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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 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: defect in my former relation; and this was, I forgot to set down
among the rest, that just as we were weighing the anchor to set
sail, there happened a little quarrel on board of our ship, which I
was once afraid would have turned to a second mutiny; nor was it
appeased till the captain, rousing up his courage, and taking us
all to his assistance, parted them by force, and making two of the
most refractory fellows prisoners, he laid them in irons: and as
they had been active in the former disorders, and let fall some
ugly, dangerous words the second time, he threatened to carry them
in irons to England, and have them hanged there for mutiny and
running away with the ship. This, it seems, though the captain did
Robinson Crusoe |
