| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: can't quit in the middle of his song to stop you. He'll know I
put you wise, and he'll prob'ly half kill me for it. But it's
worth it. You get."
And Terry--dazed, shaking, but grateful--fled. Down the noisy
aisle, up the stairs, to the street. Back to her rooming house.
Out again, with her suitcase, and into the right railroad station
somehow, at last. Not another Wetona train until midnight. She
shrank into a remote corner of the waiting room and there she
huddled until midnight, watching the entrances like a child who
is fearful of ghosts in the night.
The hands of the station clock seemed fixed and immovable. The
One Basket |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: near said for ever. They are very tame; and I begin to read up the
directory, and pine for an island with a profile, a running brook,
or were it only a well among the rocks. The thought of a mango
came to me early this morning and set my greed on edge; but you do
not know what a mango is, so -.
I have been thinking a great deal of you and the Monument of late,
and even tried to get my thoughts into a poem, hitherto without
success. God knows how you are: I begin to weary dreadfully to
see you - well, in nine months, I hope; but that seems a long time.
I wonder what has befallen me too, that flimsy part of me that
lives (or dwindles) in the public mind; and what has befallen THE
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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 Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: Will never know of what I try to sing,
How long the last kiss was, how fond and late his lingering.
The moon was girdled with a crystal rim,
The sign which shipmen say is ominous
Of wrath in heaven, the wan stars were dim,
And the low lightening east was tremulous
With the faint fluttering wings of flying dawn,
Ere from the silent sombre shrine his lover had withdrawn.
Down the steep rock with hurried feet and fast
Clomb the brave lad, and reached the cave of Pan,
And heard the goat-foot snoring as he passed,
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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 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: by bringing former passages into my mind, which I would rather
have forgot.
I slept some hours, but perpetually disturbed with dreams of the
place I had left, and the dangers I had escaped. However, upon
waking, I found myself much recovered. It was now about eight
o'clock at night, and the captain ordered supper immediately,
thinking I had already fasted too long. He entertained me with
great kindness, observing me not to look wildly, or talk
inconsistently: and, when we were left alone, desired I would
give him a relation of my travels, and by what accident I came to
be set adrift, in that monstrous wooden chest. He said "that
Gulliver's Travels |
