| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman: There's got to be something!"
I was inclined to believe that there had to be something, so
I took the bull by the horns--the cow, I should say!--and asked Somel.
"I want to find some flaw in all this perfection," I told her
flatly. "It simply isn't possible that three million people have no
faults. We are trying our best to understand and learn--would
you mind helping us by saying what, to your minds, are the
worst qualities of this unique civilization of yours?"
We were sitting together in a shaded arbor, in one of those
eating-gardens of theirs. The delicious food had been eaten, a
plate of fruit still before us. We could look out on one side over
Herland |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: And yet when day came, it was to shine upon the same broken and
unsightly quarter of the world. Mile upon mile, and not a tree, a
bird, or a river. Only down the long, sterile canons, the train
shot hooting and awoke the resting echo. That train was the one
piece of life in all the deadly land; it was the one actor, the one
spectacle fit to be observed in this paralysis of man and nature.
And when I think how the railroad has been pushed through this
unwatered wilderness and haunt of savage tribes, and now will bear
an emigrant for some 12 pounds from the Atlantic to the Golden
Gates; how at each stage of the construction, roaring, impromptu
cities, full of gold and lust and death, sprang up and then died
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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 Awakening & Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin: confirmatory bob of the head.
The sun was high up and beginning to bite. The swift breeze
seemed to Edna to bury the sting of it into the pores of her face
and hands. Robert held his umbrella over her. As they went
cutting sidewise through the water, the sails bellied taut, with
the wind filling and overflowing them. Old Monsieur Farival
laughed sardonically at something as he looked at the sails, and
Beaudelet swore at the old man under his breath.
Sailing across the bay to the Cheniere Caminada, Edna felt
as if she were being borne away from some anchorage which had held
her fast, whose chains had been loosening--had snapped the night
Awakening & Selected Short Stories |
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 Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: as commander, with Bradley as my first lieutenant and Olson as
my second, in command of the Englishmen; while von Schoenvorts
was to act as an additional second lieutenant and have charge of
his own men. The four of us were to constitute a military court
under which men might be tried and sentenced to punishment for
infraction of military rules and discipline, even to the passing
of the death-sentence.
I then had arms and ammunition issued to the Germans, and leaving
Bradley and five men to guard the U-33, the balance of us went ashore.
The first thing we did was to taste the water of the little stream--
which, to our delight, we found sweet, pure and cold. This stream
The Land that Time Forgot |
