| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw: couples selected by the parents, couples forced to marry one another
by circumstances of one kind or another; and he assures me that if
marriages were made by putting all the men's names into one sack and
the women's names into another, and having them taken out by a
blindfolded child like lottery numbers, there would be just as high a
percentage of happy marriages as we have here in England. He said
Cupid was nothing but the blindfolded child: pretty idea that, I
think! I shall have as good a chance with Patsy as with anyone else.
Mind: I'm not bigoted about it. I'm not a doctrinaire: not the
slave of a theory. You and Lord Summerhays are experienced married
men. If you can tell me of any trustworthy method of selecting a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: held out for a long while before she gave the signature required by
French law for the sale of the property; nevertheless the Count gained
his point. The Countess was convinced that her husband was realizing
his fortune, and that somewhere or other there would be a little bunch
of notes representing the amount; they had been deposited with a
notary, or perhaps at the bank, or in some safe hiding-place.
Following out her train of thought, it was evident that M. de Restaud
must of necessity have some kind of document in his possession by
which any remaining property could be recovered and handed over to his
son.
"So she made up her mind to keep the strictest possible watch over the
Gobseck |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: I was grown timid and despondent, and could not help fearing that
some dreadful calamity awaited us there. I seemed to see the black
clouds gathering round my native hills, and to hear the angry
muttering of a storm that was about to burst, and desolate our
hearth.
CHAPTER XVIII - MIRTH AND MOURNING
THE 1st of June arrived at last: and Rosalie Murray was transmuted
into Lady Ashby. Most splendidly beautiful she looked in her
bridal costume. Upon her return from church, after the ceremony,
she came flying into the schoolroom, flushed with excitement, and
laughing, half in mirth, and half in reckless desperation, as it
Agnes Grey |
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 Talisman by Walter Scott: but for the narrowness of his forehead and something of too much
thinness and sharpness of feature, or at least what might have
seemed such in a European estimate of beauty.
The manners of the Eastern warrior were grave, graceful, and
decorous; indicating, however, in some particulars, the habitual
restraint which men of warm and choleric tempers often set as a
guard upon their native impetuosity of disposition, and at the
same time a sense of his own dignity, which seemed to impose a
certain formality of behaviour in him who entertained it.
This haughty feeling of superiority was perhaps equally
entertained by his new European acquaintance, but the effect was
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