| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: equal and to defer to me in other things than reading lessons.
This change came about from an adventure we had together.
One day when I rode over to the Shimerdas' I found Antonia starting off
on foot for Russian Peter's house, to borrow a spade Ambrosch needed.
I offered to take her on the pony, and she got up behind me.
There had been another black frost the night before, and the air
was clear and heady as wine. Within a week all the blooming roads
had been despoiled, hundreds of miles of yellow sunflowers had been
transformed into brown, rattling, burry stalks.
We found Russian Peter digging his potatoes. We were glad to go
in and get warm by his kitchen stove and to see his squashes
My Antonia |
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 A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: du Bruel received her; she was satisfied. She took up the position of
a well-conducted, simple, and virtuous woman, and never acted out of
character. In three years' time she was introduced to the friends of
these ladies.
" 'And still I cannot persuade myself that young Mme. du Bruel used to
display her ankles, and the rest, to all Paris, with the light of a
hundred gas-jets pouring upon her,' Mme. Anselme Popinot remarked
naively.
"From this point of view, July 1830 inaugurated an era not unlike the
time of the Empire, when a waiting woman was received at Court in the
person of Mme. Garat, a chief-justice's 'lady.' Tullia had completely
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