| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: was done with the world and the business of it. He let the tin
fall, and looked out, pressing his face close to the rusty bars.
How they crowded and pushed! And he,--he should never walk that
pavement again! There came Neff Sanders, one of the feeders at
the mill, with a basket on his arm. Sure enough, Nyeff was
married the other week. He whistled, hoping he would look up;
but he did not. He wondered if Neff remembered he was there,--
if any of the boys thought of him up there, and thought that he
never was to go down that old cinder-road again. Never again!
He had not quite understood it before; but now he did. Not for
days or years, but never!--that was it.
Life in the Iron-Mills |
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: the intruders were gone, and all was over.
I was in my own room as usual--just myself, without obvious change:
nothing had smitten me, or scathed me, or maimed me. And yet where
was the Jane Eyre of yesterday?--where was her life?--where were her
prospects?
Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent, expectant woman--almost a bride,
was a cold, solitary girl again: her life was pale; her prospects
were desolate. A Christmas frost had come at midsummer; a white
December storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples,
drifts crushed the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield lay a
frozen shroud: lanes which last night blushed full of flowers, to-
Jane Eyre |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson: carrying chimneys like a house. And yet a glance of an
eye discovers their true character. They are not houses;
for they were not designed with a view to human
habitation, and the internal arrangements are, as they
tell me, fantastically unsuited to the needs of man.
They are not buildings; for you can scarcely say a thing
is built where every measurement is in clamant
disproportion with its neighbour. They belong to no
style of art, only to a form of business much to be
regretted.
Why should it be cheaper to erect a structure where
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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 The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: last scruple gone, the danger of delay written before me in huge
characters. From that moment forth I seem not to have sat down or
breathed. Now I would be at my post with the Master and his
Indian; now in the garret, buckling a valise; now sending forth
Macconochie by the side postern and the wood-path to bear it to the
trysting-place; and, again, snatching some words of counsel with my
lady. This was the VERSO of our life in Durrisdeer that day; but
on the RECTO all appeared quite settled, as of a family at home in
its paternal seat; and what perturbation may have been observable,
the Master would set down to the blow of his unlooked-for coming,
and the fear he was accustomed to inspire.
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