| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: her triumph by reproof; ere I could contract my brows to a frown
she had become serious and almost mournful-looking.
"Thank you, sir," said she, rising. There was gratitude both in
her voice and in the look with which she accompanied it. It was
time, indeed, for our conference to terminate; for, when I
glanced around, behold all the boarders (the day-scholars had
departed) were congregated within a yard or two of my desk, and
stood staring with eyes and mouths wide open; the three
maitresses formed a whispering knot in one corner, and, close at
my elbow, was the directress, sitting on a low chair, calmly
clipping the tassels of her finished purse.
The Professor |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Glasses by Henry James: striking, the disclosure of effects produced in the most
extraordinary quarters: on people who had followed her into
railway carriages; guards and porters even who had literally stuck
there; others who had spoken to her in shops and hung about her
house door; cabmen, upon her honour, in London, who, to gaze their
fill at her, had found excuses to thrust their petrifaction through
the very glasses of four-wheelers. She lost herself in these
reminiscences, the moral of which was that poor Mr. Dawling was
only one of a million. When therefore the next autumn she
flourished into my studio with her odd companion at her heels her
first care was to make clear to me that if he was now in servitude
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: by daylight, eh, Mr. Macey?" said the landlord.
"Aye, aye; go that way of a dark night, that's all," said
Mr. Macey, winking mysteriously, "and then make believe, if you
like, as you didn't see lights i' the stables, nor hear the stamping
o' the hosses, nor the cracking o' the whips, and howling, too, if
it's tow'rt daybreak. "Cliff's Holiday" has been the name of it
ever sin' I were a boy; that's to say, some said as it was the
holiday Old Harry gev him from roasting, like. That's what my
father told me, and he was a reasonable man, though there's folks
nowadays know what happened afore they were born better nor they
know their own business."
Silas Marner |
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 Persuasion by Jane Austen: to anybody that will bring him his wife."
"Ay, that we shall."
"Now I have done," cried Captain Wentworth. "When once married
people begin to attack me with,--`Oh! you will think very differently,
when you are married.' I can only say, `No, I shall not;' and then
they say again, `Yes, you will,' and there is an end of it."
He got up and moved away.
"What a great traveller you must have been, ma'am!" said Mrs Musgrove
to Mrs Croft.
"Pretty well, ma'am in the fifteen years of my marriage;
though many women have done more. I have crossed the Atlantic
Persuasion |
