| 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: three together.
After a short pause in the conversation, Mr. Weston made some
remark addressed particularly to me, as referring to something we
had been talking of before; but before I could answer, Miss Murray
replied to the observation and enlarged upon it: he rejoined; and,
from thence to the close of the interview, she engrossed him
entirely to herself. It might be partly owing to my own stupidity,
my want of tact and assurance: but I felt myself wronged: I
trembled with apprehension; and I listened with envy to her easy,
rapid flow of utterance, and saw with anxiety the bright smile with
which she looked into his face from time to time: for she was
Agnes Grey |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: the Carmelite Convent down in the plains where,
before he left his home, he drove his mother in a
wooden cart--a pious old woman who wanted to
offer prayers and make a vow for his safety. He
could not give me an idea of how large and lofty
and full of noise and smoke and gloom, and clang
of iron, the place was, but some one had told him
it was called Berlin. Then they rang a bell, and
another steam-machine came in, and again he was
taken on and on through a land that wearied his
eyes by its flatness without a single bit of a hill to
Amy Foster |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: from house to house, to behold, with astonishment and laughter,
this new and prodigious, waist, with which it seemed to them it
was impossible for a human being to breathe or live; and they
petted the poor girl, and fed her, as they might a dwarf or a
giantess, till she got quite fat and comfortable, while her owners
had not enough to eat. So strange and ridiculous seemed our
present fashion to the descendants of those who, centuries before,
had imagined, because they had seen living and moving, those
glorious statues which we pretend to admire, but refuse to
imitate.
It seems to me that a few centuries hence, when mankind has learnt
|
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 Hamlet by William Shakespeare: And pittie it is true: A foolish figure,
But farewell it: for I will vse no Art.
Mad let vs grant him then: and now remaines
That we finde out the cause of this effect,
Or rather say, the cause of this defect;
For this effect defectiue, comes by cause,
Thus it remaines, and the remainder thus. Perpend,
I haue a daughter: haue, whil'st she is mine,
Who in her Dutie and Obedience, marke,
Hath giuen me this: now gather, and surmise.
The Letter.
Hamlet |
