| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: altogether impossible to find such a solitary island as I desired
to live in; but I might command in my own house, and pass my time
in a manner as recluse as I pleased."
I complied at last, finding I could not do better. I left Lisbon
the 24th day of November, in an English merchantman, but who was
the master I never inquired. Don Pedro accompanied me to the
ship, and lent me twenty pounds. He took kind leave of me, and
embraced me at parting, which I bore as well as I could. During
this last voyage I had no commerce with the master or any of his
men; but, pretending I was sick, kept close in my cabin. On the
fifth of December, 1715, we cast anchor in the Downs, about nine
Gulliver's Travels |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Last War: A World Set Free by H. G. Wells: on the doorsteps of those who had failed to urge them onward....
The remnants of the British troops left France finally in March,
after urgent representations from the provisional government at
Orleans that they could be supported no longer. They seem to have
been a fairly well-behaved, but highly parasitic force
throughout, though Barnet is clearly of opinion that they did
much to suppress sporadic brigandage and maintain social order.
He came home to a famine-stricken country, and his picture of the
England of that spring is one of miserable patience and desperate
expedients. The country was suffering much more than France,
because of the cessation of the overseas supplies on which it had
The Last War: A World Set Free |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: called waiters upon Providence, or, in other words, uniform
adherents to the party who are uppermost. Many of these hastened
to read their recantation to the Marquis of A----; and, as it was
easily seen that he took a deep interest in the affairs of his
kinsman, the Master of Ravenswood, they were the first to suggest
measures for retrieving at least a part of his property, and for
restoring him in blood against his father's attainder.
Old Lord Turntippet professed to be one of the most anxious for
the success of these measures; for "it grieved him to the very
saul," he said, "to see so brave a young gentleman, of sic auld
and undoubted nobility, and, what was mair than a' that, a bluid
The Bride of Lammermoor |
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 Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: deceive you. An alliance has been proposed to me which satisfies
all my ideas of matrimony. Love in marriage is a delusion. My
present experience warns me that in marrying we are bound to obey
all social laws and meet the conventional demands of the world.
Now, between you and me there are differences which might affect
your future, my dear cousin, even more than they would mine. I
will not here speak of your customs and inclinations, your
education, nor yet of your habits, none of which are in keeping
with Parisian life, or with the future which I have marked out for
myself. My intention is to keep my household on a stately footing,
to receive much company,--in short, to live in the world; and I
Eugenie Grandet |
