| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: from beneath a golden riot of loose hair.
--"M'sieu-le-Docteur, maman d'mande si vous n'avez besoin
d'que'que chose?" ... She spoke the rude French of the fishing
villages, where the language lives chiefly as a baragouin,
mingled often with words and forms belonging to many other
tongues. She wore a loose-falling dress of some light stuff,
steel-gray in color;--boys' shoes were on her feet.
He did not reply;--and her large eyes grew larger for wonder at
the strange fixed gaze of the physician, whose face had visibly
bleached,--blanched to corpse-pallor. Silent seconds passed; and
still the eyes stared--flamed as if the life of the man had
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: thus far."
His guide, more from curiosity than from any interested motive,
propped himself against the wall that rose to the height of a man's
elbow. Upon this wall, which enclosed the yard belonging to the house,
there ran a black wooden railing on either side of the square pillars
of the gates. The lower part of the gates themselves was of solid wood
that had been painted gray at some period in the past; the upper part
consisted of a grating of yellowish spear-shaped bars. These
decorations, which had lost all their color, gradually rose on either
half of the gates till they reached the centre where they met; their
spikes forming, when both leaves were shut, an outline similar to that
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from An Open Letter on Translating by Dr. Martin Luther: they cannot. Coming down to their level, I can do their
dialectics and philosophy better than all of them put together.
Plus I know that not one of them understands Aristotle. If, in
fact, any one of them can correctly understand one part or chapter
of Aristotle, I will eat my hat! No, I am not overdoing it for I
have been educated in and have practiced their science since my
childhood. I recognize how broad and deep it is. They, too, know
that everything they can do, I can do. Yet they handle me like a
stranger in their discipline, these incurable fellows, as if I had
just arrived this morning and had never seen or heard what they
know and teach. How they do so brilliantly parade around with
|
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 Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: wish I knew.'
'Come, take your tea, Eliza, and don't be foolish,' responded I,
handing her the sugar and cream.
Just then there arose a slight commotion on the other side of me,
occasioned by Miss Wilson's coming to negotiate an exchange of
seats with Rose.
'Will you be so good as to exchange places with me, Miss Markham?'
said she; 'for I don't like to sit by Mrs. Graham. If your mamma
thinks proper to invite such persons to her house, she cannot
object to her daughter's keeping company with them.'
This latter clause was added in a sort of soliloquy when Rose was
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
