| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: deale double with her, truely it were an ill thing to be offered
to any Gentlewoman, and very weake dealing
Nur. Nurse commend me to thy Lady and Mistresse, I
protest vnto thee
Nur. Good heart, and yfaith I will tell her as much:
Lord, Lord she will be a ioyfull woman
Rom. What wilt thou tell her Nurse? thou doest not
marke me?
Nur. I will tell her sir, that you do protest, which as I
take it, is a Gentleman-like offer
Rom. Bid her deuise some meanes to come to shrift this
Romeo and Juliet |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: they recollect that they have any duty to do. Greed, chicane,
hypocrisy, uselessness are the ruling laws of human society. A new
book of Ecclesiastes, crying, "Vanity of vanity, all is vanity;" the
"conclusion of the whole matter" being left out, and the new
Ecclesiastes rendered thereby diabolic, instead of like that old
one, divine. For, instead of "Fear God and keep his commandments,
for that is the whole duty of main," Le Sage sends forth the new
conclusion, "Take care of thyself, and feed on thy neighbours, for
that is the whole duty of man." And very faithfully was his advice
(easy enough to obey at all times) obeyed for nearly a century after
"Gil Blas" appeared.
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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 Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: hardly think he will return to-night."
"A quarrel? Was that after the fall seen by the boy?"
Melbury nodded an affirmative, without taking his eyes off the
candle.
"Yes; it was as we were coming home together," he said.
Something had been swelling up in Grace while her father was
speaking. "How could you want to quarrel with him?" she cried,
suddenly. "Why could you not let him come home quietly if he were
inclined to? He is my husband; and now you have married me to him
surely you need not provoke him unnecessarily. First you induce
me to accept him, and then you do things that divide us more than
The Woodlanders |
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 Middlemarch by George Eliot: an excellent pickle of epigrams, which she herself enjoyed the more
because she believed as unquestionably in birth and no-birth as she
did in game and vermin. She would never have disowned any one on the
ground of poverty: a De Bracy reduced to take his dinner in a basin
would have seemed to her an example of pathos worth exaggerating,
and I fear his aristocratic vices would not have horrified her.
But her feeling towards the vulgar rich was a sort of religious hatred:
they had probably made all their money out of high retail prices,
and Mrs. Cadwallader detested high prices for everything that was not
paid in kind at the Rectory: such people were no part of God's design
in making the world; and their accent was an affliction to the ears.
Middlemarch |
