| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lady Susan by Jane Austen: disliked Sir James?" "I knew that he was not absolutely the man she would
have chosen, but I was persuaded that her objections to him did not arise
from any perception of his deficiency. You must not question me, however,
my dear sister, too minutely on this point," continued she, taking me
affectionately by the hand; "I honestly own that there is something to
conceal. Frederica makes me very unhappy! Her applying to Mr. De Courcy
hurt me particularly." "What is it you mean to infer," said I, " by this
appearance of mystery? If you think your daughter at all attached to
Reginald, her objecting to Sir James could not less deserve to be attended
to than if the cause of her objecting had been a consciousness of his folly
; and why should your ladyship, at any rate, quarrel with my brother for an
Lady Susan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: She then found that it consisted of Mrs Musgrove, Henrietta,
and Captain Harville, beside their two selves. He gave her a very plain,
intelligible account of the whole; a narration in which she saw
a great deal of most characteristic proceeding. The scheme
had received its first impulse by Captain Harville's wanting to
come to Bath on business. He had begun to talk of it a week ago;
and by way of doing something, as shooting was over, Charles had proposed
coming with him, and Mrs Harville had seemed to like the idea of it
very much, as an advantage to her husband; but Mary could not bear
to be left, and had made herself so unhappy about it, that for a day or two
everything seemed to be in suspense, or at an end. But then,
Persuasion |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: be kind to people about whom one cares nothing. But she would
have soon found out that you were absolutely indifferent
to her. And when a woman finds that out about her husband,
she either becomes dreadfully dowdy, or wears very smart
bonnets that some other woman's husband has to pay for.
I say nothing about the social mistake, which would have
been abject--which, of course, I would not have allowed--
but I assure you that in any case the whole thing would have been an
absolute failure."
"I suppose it would," muttered the lad, walking up and down the room
and looking horribly pale. "But I thought it was my duty.
The Picture of Dorian Gray |
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 The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: sympathy. He set forth in Biblical language the phenomena of love, of
instinctive repulsion, of strong affinities which transcend the laws
of space, of the sudden mingling of souls which seem to recognize each
other. With regard to the different degrees of strength of which our
affections are capable, he accounted for them by the place, more or
less near the centre, occupied by beings in their respective circles.
He gave mathematical expression to God's grand idea in the
co-ordination of the various human spheres. "Through man," he said,
"these spheres constituted a world intermediate between the
intelligence of the brute and the intelligence of the angels." As he
stated it, the divine Word nourishes the spiritual Word, the spiritual
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