| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: strike my colours; and under pretence of gaining information
concerning the necessities of my establishment, I desired Mrs.
Dean, when she brought in supper, to sit down while I ate it;
hoping sincerely she would prove a regular gossip, and either rouse
me to animation or lull me to sleep by her talk.
'You have lived here a considerable time,' I commenced; 'did you
not say sixteen years?'
'Eighteen, sir: I came when the mistress was married, to wait on
her; after she died, the master retained me for his housekeeper.'
'Indeed.'
There ensued a pause. She was not a gossip, I feared; unless about
Wuthering Heights |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: of all who practised it, and hence became a perpetual
education to their nobler natures; and which, pay it as you
please, in the large majority of the best cases will still be
underpaid. For surely, at this time of day in the nineteenth
century, there is nothing that an honest man should fear more
timorously than getting and spending more than he deserves.
CHAPTER III - BOOKS WHICH HAVE INFLUENCED ME (14)
THE Editor (15) has somewhat insidiously laid a trap for his
correspondents, the question put appearing at first so
innocent, truly cutting so deep. It is not, indeed, until
after some reconnaissance and review that the writer awakes
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: day when Madame de Vaudremont had chained him to her car, she had
confidently hoped that repentance would ere long restore her husband
to her. It was with unspeakable repugnance that she had consented to
the scheme plotted by her aunt, Madame de Lansac, and at this moment
she feared she had made a mistake.
The evening's experience had saddened her innocent soul. Alarmed at
first by the Count's look of suffering and dejection, she had become
more so on seeing her rival's beauty, and the corruption of society
had gripped her heart. As she crossed the Pont Royal she threw away
the desecrated hair at the back of the diamond, given to her once as a
token of the purest affection. She wept as she remembered the bitter
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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 Lady Susan by Jane Austen: be gone; I have therefore determined on leaving them, and shall spend, I
hope, a comfortable day with you in town within this week. If I am as
little in favour with Mr. Johnson as ever, you must come to me at 10
Wigmore street; but I hope this may not be the case, for as Mr. Johnson,
with all his faults, is a man to whom that great word "respectable" is
always given, and I am known to be so intimate with his wife, his slighting
me has an awkward look.
I take London in my way to that insupportable spot, a country village;
for I am really going to Churchhill. Forgive me, my dear friend, it is my
last resource. Were there another place in England open to me I would
prefer it. Charles Vernon is my aversion; and I am afraid of his wife. At
Lady Susan |
