| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Poems by Bronte Sisters: And burst through brier and thorn:
And, pausing by the river's side,
Poor reasoner! thou wilt deem,
By casting pebbles in its tide,
To cross the swelling stream.
Right through the flinty rock thou'lt try
Thy toilsome way to bore,
Regardless of the pathway nigh
That would conduct thee o'er
Not only art thou, then, unkind,
And freezing cold to me,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: in the evening, by six o'clock saw the tide of battle turned by
Desaix's desperate attack and Kellermann's terrific charge, so Chesnel
in the midst of defeat saw the beginnings of victory. No one but a
Chesnel, an old notary, an ex-steward of the manor, old Maitre
Sorbier's junior clerk, in the sudden flash of lucidity which comes
with despair, could rise thus, high as a Napoleon, nay, higher. This
was not Marengo, it was Waterloo, and the Prussians had come up;
Chesnel saw this, and was determined to beat them off the field.
"Madame," he said, "remember that I have been your man of business for
twenty years; remember that if the d'Esgrignons mean the honor of the
province, you represent the honor of the bourgeoisie; it rests with
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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 Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson: Whatever eldest-born of rank or wealth
Might lie within their compass, him they lured
Into their net made pleasant by the baits
Of gold and beauty, wooing him to woo.
So month by month the noise about their doors,
And distant blaze of those dull banquets, made
The nightly wirer of their innocent hare
Falter before he took it. All in vain.
Sullen, defiant, pitying, wroth, return'd
Leolin's rejected rivals from their suit
So often, that the folly taking wings
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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 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: time I laid it down in black and white, as we say, that it was
morally impossible, with a supposition of any reasonable good
conduct, but that we must thrive there and do very well.
Then I told him what measures I would take to raise such a
sum of #300 or thereabouts; and I argued with him how good
a method it would be to put an end to our misfortunes and
restore our circumstances in the world, to what we had both
expected; and I added, that after seven years, if we lived, we
might be in a posture to leave our plantations in good hands,
and come over again and receive the income of it, and live
here and enjoy it; and I gave him examples of some that had
Moll Flanders |
