| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: wife, no matter.'
'Why, are you really frozen?' asked Vasili Andreevich.
'I feel it's my death. Forgive me for Christ's sake . . .'
said Nikita in a tearful voice, continuing to wave his hand
before his face as if driving away flies.
Vasili Andreevich stood silent and motionless for half a
minute. Then suddenly, with the same resolution with which he
used to strike hands when making a good purchase, he took a
step back and turning up his sleeves began raking the snow off
Nikita and out of the sledge. Having done this he hurriedly
undid his girdle, opened out his fur coat, and having pushed
Master and Man |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: "Come, let us go and make a fire, I can sleep no more," she said; "I have
heard a strange thing tonight. Your father said it was a jackal's cry, but
no jackal cries so. It was a child's voice, and it cried, 'Master, master,
wake!'"
The women looked at each other; then they went to the kitchen, and made a
great fire; and they sang psalms all the while.
At last the man came back; and they asked him, "What have you seen?"
"Nothing," he said, "but the sheep asleep in their kraals, and the
moonlight on the walls. And yet, it did seem to me," he added, "that far
away near the krantz by the river, I saw three figures moving. And
afterwards--it might have been fancy--I thought I heard the cry again; but
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: "The use of wire rigging became general about that time, too," he
observed. "I was a very young master then. That was before you
were born."
"Yes, sir. I am of the year of 1857."
"The Mutiny year," he commented, as if to himself, adding in a
louder tone that his ship happened then to be in the Gulf of
Bengal, employed under a government charter.
Clearly the transport service had been the making of this
examiner, who so unexpectedly had given me an insight into his
existence, awakening in me the sense of the continuity of that
sea life into which I had stepped from outside; giving a touch of
A Personal Record |
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 Enchanted Island of Yew by L. Frank Baum: whatsoever, and that deprives me of any chance of coming to harm while
in your company."
"Cheer up, my boy!" cried Marvel. "Did I not say there are new
adventures before us? We may not come through them so easily as we
came through the others."
"That is true," replied Nerle; "it is always best to hope." And then
he inquired: "Why do you stop here, in the middle of the path?"
"Because the path has ended rather suddenly," answered Marvel. "Here
is a thick hedge of prickly briers barring our way."
Nerle looked over his master's shoulder and saw that a great hedge,
high and exceedingly thick, cut off all prospect of their advancing.
The Enchanted Island of Yew |
