| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence: lower half of his body, from the hips down, paralysed for ever.
This was in 1920. They returned, Clifford and Constance, to his home,
Wragby Hall, the family 'seat'. His father had died, Clifford was now a
baronet, Sir Clifford, and Constance was Lady Chatterley. They came to
start housekeeping and married life in the rather forlorn home of the
Chatterleys on a rather inadequate income. Clifford had a sister, but
she had departed. Otherwise there were no near relatives. The elder
brother was dead in the war. Crippled for ever, knowing he could never
have any children, Clifford came home to the smoky Midlands to keep the
Chatterley name alive while he could.
He was not really downcast. He could wheel himself about in a wheeled
Lady Chatterley's Lover |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from King James Bible: given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies.
JER 12:8 Mine heritage is unto me as a lion in the forest; it crieth
out against me: therefore have I hated it.
JER 12:9 Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird, the birds round
about are against her; come ye, assemble all the beasts of the field,
come to devour.
JER 12:10 Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my
portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate
wilderness.
JER 12:11 They have made it desolate, and being desolate it mourneth
unto me; the whole land is made desolate, because no man layeth it to
King James Bible |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: By a chance, she got a position in an establishment where they
made collars and cuffs. She received a stool and a machine in a
room where sat twenty girls of various shades of yellow discontent.
She perched on the stool and treadled at her machine all day,
turning out collars, the name of whose brand could be noted for its
irrelevancy to anything in connection with collars. At night she
returned home to her mother.
Jimmie grew large enough to take the vague position of head of
the family. As incumbent of that office, he stumbled up-stairs
late at night, as his father had done before him. He reeled about
the room, swearing at his relations, or went to sleep on the floor.
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
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 Message by Honore de Balzac: and exceeding grief; it was as if a gray cloud covered the place
through which the sun had shone.
I gave her the story of the accident in a few words, without
laying too much stress on some too harrowing details. I told her
about our first day's journey, and how it had been filled with
recollections of her and of love. And she listened eagerly,
without shedding a tear, leaning her face towards me, as some
zealous doctor might lean to watch any change in a patient's
face. When she seemed to me to have opened her whole heart to
pain, to be deliberately plunging herself into misery with the
first delirious frenzy of despair, I caught at my opportunity,
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