| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: see that all the world was not made up of Bloomfields, Murrays,
Hatfields, Ashbys, &c.; and that human excellence was not a mere
dream of the imagination. When we hear a little good and no harm
of a person, it is easy and pleasant to imagine more: in short, it
is needless to analyse all my thoughts; but Sunday was now become a
day of peculiar delight to me (I was now almost broken-in to the
back corner in the carriage), for I liked to hear him - and I liked
to see him, too; though I knew he was not handsome, or even what is
called agreeable, in outward aspect; but, certainly, he was not
ugly.
In stature he was a little, a very little, above the middle size;
Agnes Grey |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: hand, and struck Marie sharply, saying:--
"You've made me miss my stroke; but I'll not miss you, and I'll give
it to you till you muffle that clapper of yours."
Socquard and Rigou, who now thought it wise to interfere, entered the
cafe by the front door, raising such a crowd of flies that the light
from the windows was obscured; the sound was like that of the distant
practising of a drum-corps. After their first excitement was over, the
big flies with the bluish bellies, accompanied by the stinging little
ones, returned to their quarters in the windows, where on three tiers
of planks, the paint of which was indistinguishable under the fly-
specks, were rows of viscous bottles ranged like soldiers.
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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 Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: is dependent for his success upon the favour of an unseen
benefactor. Let his skill and industry be never so great, he can do
nothing unless LA BONNE CHANCE comes to him.
I was once fishing on a fair little river, the P'tit Saguenay, with
two excellent anglers and pleasant companions, H. E. G---- and C. S.
D----. They had done all that was humanly possible to secure good
sport. The stream had been well preserved. They had boxes full of
beautiful flies, and casting-lines imported from England, and a rod
for every fish in the river. But the weather was "dour," and the
water "drumly," and every day the lumbermen sent a "drive" of ten
thousand spruce logs rushing down the flooded stream. For three
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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 Prufrock/Other Observations by T. S. Eliot: "Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know
What life is, you who hold it in your hands";
(Slowly twisting the lilac stalks)
"You let it flow from you, you let it flow,
And youth is cruel, and has no remorse
And smiles at situations which it cannot see."
I smile, of course,
And go on drinking tea.
"Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recall
My buried life, and Paris in the Spring
feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world
Prufrock/Other Observations |
