| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: for not thinking; two: people like you better than they like me.
Women like you, I suppose."
"I wonder whether that isn't really what matters most?" said Hewet.
Lying now flat on the bed he waved his hand in vague circles
above him.
"Of course it is," said Hirst. "But that's not the difficulty.
The difficulty is, isn't it, to find an appropriate object?"
"There are no female hens in your circle?" asked Hewet.
"Not the ghost of one," said Hirst.
Although they had known each other for three years Hirst had never
yet heard the true story of Hewet's loves. In general conversation
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: When I got there, I was forced to sit to rest me under the hedge;
and while I sat, I heard wheels, and saw a coach come on. I stood
up and lifted my hand; it stopped. I asked where it was going: the
driver named a place a long way off, and where I was sure Mr.
Rochester had no connections. I asked for what sum he would take me
there; he said thirty shillings; I answered I had but twenty; well,
he would try to make it do. He further gave me leave to get into
the inside, as the vehicle was empty: I entered, was shut in, and
it rolled on its way.
Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt! May your eyes
never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from
Jane Eyre |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: HIPPIAS: Yes, I should.
SOCRATES: And could you speak falsehoods about them equally well? I must
beg, Hippias, that you will answer me with the same frankness and
magnanimity which has hitherto characterized you. If a person were to ask
you what is the sum of 3 multiplied by 700, would not you be the best and
most consistent teller of a falsehood, having always the power of speaking
falsely as you have of speaking truly, about these same matters, if you
wanted to tell a falsehood, and not to answer truly? Would the ignorant
man be better able to tell a falsehood in matters of calculation than you
would be, if you chose? Might he not sometimes stumble upon the truth,
when he wanted to tell a lie, because he did not know, whereas you who are
|
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 Camille by Alexandre Dumas: of the least of your thoughts. What you proposed to me just now
made me frantic with delight, but the mystery in its carrying out
hurts me dreadfully."
"Come, let us reason it out," she said, taking both my hands and
looking at me with a charming smile which it was impossible to
resist, "You love me, do you not? and you would gladly spend two
or three months alone with me in the country? I too should be
glad of this solitude a deux, and not only glad of it, but my
health requires it. I can not leave Paris for such a length of
time without putting my affairs in order, and the affairs of a
woman like me are always in great confusion; well, I have found a
Camille |
