| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: worn, old clouds, frayed at the edges, with holes in them, or dark stains
like tea.
While the water was heating, Ma Parker began sweeping the floor. "Yes,"
she thought, as the broom knocked, "what with one thing and another I've
had my share. I've had a hard life."
Even the neighbours said that of her. Many a time, hobbling home with her
fish bag she heard them, waiting at the corner, or leaning over the area
railings, say among themselves, "She's had a hard life, has Ma Parker."
And it was so true she wasn't in the least proud of it. It was just as if
you were to say she lived in the basement-back at Number 27. A hard
life!...
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: the supper. She gave to the dishes and to the room generally the
glance of a mistress, and then, sure of having attended to all the
wants of the travellers, she returned to the kitchen.
The four men, for the landlord was invited to drink, did not hear her
go to bed, but later, during the intervals of silence which came into
their talk, certain strongly accentuated snores, made the more
sonorous by the thin planks of the loft in which she had ensconced
herself, made the guests laugh and also the husband. Towards midnight,
when nothing remained on the table but biscuits, cheese, dried fruit,
and good wine, the guests, chiefly the young Frenchmen, became
communicative. The latter talked of their homes, their studies, and of
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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 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: wish to be set down as an infidel; and, besides, I know I should
derive great comfort and benefit from an occasional attendance at
public worship, if I could only have faith and fortitude to compose
my thoughts in conformity with the solemn occasion, and forbid them
to be for ever dwelling on my absent child, and on the dreadful
possibility of finding him gone when I return; and surely God in
His mercy will preserve me from so severe a trial: for my child's
own sake, if not for mine, He will not suffer him to be torn away.
November 3rd. - I have made some further acquaintance with my
neighbours. The fine gentleman and beau of the parish and its
vicinity (in his own estimation, at least) is a young . . . .
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
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 Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: impostors, who set up to be the artists. I know several learned
men have contended that the whole is a cheat; that it is absurd
and ridiculous to imagine, the stars can have any influence at
all upon human actions, thoughts, or inclinations: And whoever
has not bent his studies that way, may be excused for thinking
so, when he sees in how wretched a manner that noble art is
treated by a few mean illiterate traders between us and the
stars; who import a yearly stock of nonsense, lyes, folly, and
impertinence, which they offer to the world as genuine from the
planets, tho' they descend from no greater a height than their
own brains.
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