| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare: Fai. Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or else you are that shrew'd and knauish spirit
Cal'd Robin Good-fellow. Are you not hee,
That frights the maidens of the Villagree,
Skim milke, and sometimes labour in the querne,
And bootlesse make the breathlesse huswife cherne,
And sometime make the drinke to beare no barme,
Misleade night-wanderers, laughing at their harme,
Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Pucke,
You do their worke, and they shall haue good lucke.
Are not you he?
A Midsummer Night's Dream |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: and knew all their dogs. Not one of them had a spaniel like that.
How did he come to be in the depths of the forest, on a track
used for nothing but carting timber? He could hardly have
dropped behind someone passing through, for there was nowhere for
the gentry to drive to along that road.
I sat down on a stump to rest, and began scrutinizing my
companion. He, too, sat down, raised his head, and fastened upon
me an intent stare. He gazed at me without blinking. I don't know
whether it was the influence of the stillness, the shadows and
sounds of the forest, or perhaps a result of exhaustion, but I
suddenly felt uneasy under the steady gaze of his ordinary doggy
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: It was a great object with me at that time to be at sea;
a very great object, I wanted to be doing something."
"To be sure you did. What should a young fellow like you do ashore
for half a year together? If a man had not a wife, he soon wants
to be afloat again."
"But, Captain Wentworth," cried Louisa, "how vexed you must have been
when you came to the Asp, to see what an old thing they had given you."
"I knew pretty well what she was before that day;" said he, smiling.
"I had no more discoveries to make than you would have as to
the fashion and strength of any old pelisse, which you had seen
lent about among half your acquaintance ever since you could remember,
Persuasion |
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 Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: the end of it. - Our misfortunes were involved together: - I gave a
sigh, - and La Fleur echoed it back again to my ear.
- How perfidious! cried La Fleur. - How unlucky! said I.
- I should not have been mortified, Monsieur, quoth La Fleur, if
she had lost it. - Nor I, La Fleur, said I, had I found it.
Whether I did or no will be seen hereafter.
THE ACT OF CHARITY. PARIS.
THE man who either disdains or fears to walk up a dark entry may be
an excellent good man, and fit for a hundred things, but he will
not do to make a good Sentimental Traveller. - I count little of
the many things I see pass at broad noonday, in large and open
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