| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: was it not a bird, a flame, and sometimes only a breath? Perhaps it is
its light that at night hovers over swamps, its breath that propels
the clouds, its voice that renders church-bells harmonious. And
Felicite worshipped devoutly, while enjoying the coolness and the
stillness of the church.
As for the dogma, she could not understand it and did not even try.
The priest discoursed, the children recited, and she went to sleep,
only to awaken with a start when they were leaving the church and
their wooden shoes clattered on the stone pavement.
In this way, she learned her catechism, her religious education having
been neglected in her youth; and thenceforth she imitated all
A Simple Soul |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: example too close before me for that; and I tried to draw the knife
out to give it him again. The blood came over my hands, I
remember, hot as tea; and with that I fainted clean away, and fell
with my head on the man's mouth.
When I came to myself it was pitch dark; the cinders had burned
out; there was nothing to be seen but the shine of the dead wood,
and I couldn't remember where I was nor why I was in such pain nor
what I was all wetted with. Then it came back, and the first thing
I attended to was to give him the knife again a half-a-dozen times
up to the handle. I believe he was dead already, but it did him no
harm and did me good.
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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 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: town, who assigned us good quarters, as by particular merchants and
owners of ships, and had money given us sufficient to carry us
either to London or back to Hull as we thought fit.
Had I now had the sense to have gone back to Hull, and have gone
home, I had been happy, and my father, as in our blessed Saviour's
parable, had even killed the fatted calf for me; for hearing the
ship I went away in was cast away in Yarmouth Roads, it was a great
while before he had any assurances that I was not drowned.
But my ill fate pushed me on now with an obstinacy that nothing
could resist; and though I had several times loud calls from my
reason and my more composed judgment to go home, yet I had no power
Robinson Crusoe |
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 Kenilworth by Walter Scott: had as yet no wife."
"And what said the Queen?" asked Leicester hastily.
"She took him up roundly," said Varney, "and asked what my Lord
Sussex had to do with a wife, or my Lord Bishop to speak on such
a subject. 'If marriage is permitted,' she said, 'I nowhere read
that it is enjoined.'"
"She likes not marriages, or speech of marriage, among
churchmen," said Leicester.
"Nor among courtiers neither," said Varney; but, observing that
Leicester changed countenance, he instantly added, "that all the
ladies who were present had joined in ridiculing Lord Sussex's
Kenilworth |
