| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith: MISS HARDCASTLE. Formally.
HARDCASTLE. Now, my friend, I hope you are satisfied.
SIR CHARLES. And how did he behave, madam?
MISS HARDCASTLE. As most profest admirers do: said some civil things
of my face, talked much of his want of merit, and the greatness of
mine; mentioned his heart, gave a short tragedy speech, and ended with
pretended rapture.
SIR CHARLES. Now I'm perfectly convinced, indeed. I know his
conversation among women to be modest and submissive: this forward
canting ranting manner by no means describes him; and, I am confident,
he never sat for the picture.
She Stoops to Conquer |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: in spite of my entrance, her attitude strangely persisted.
Then it was--with the very act of its announcing itself--
that her identity flared up in a change of posture.
She rose, not as if she had heard me, but with an indescribable
grand melancholy of indifference and detachment, and, within a
dozen feet of me, stood there as my vile predecessor.
Dishonored and tragic, she was all before me; but even as I
fixed and, for memory, secured it, the awful image passed away.
Dark as midnight in her black dress, her haggard beauty and her
unutterable woe, she had looked at me long enough to appear to say
that her right to sit at my table was as good as mine to sit at hers.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: newspapers--a man accumulates a myriad facts, lays them up in his
memory, and then when in some spring of his life he saunters
abroad into the Great Fields of thought, he, as it were, goes to
grass like a horse and leaves all his harness behind in the
stable. I would say to the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge, sometimes,--Go to grass. You have eaten hay long
enough. The spring has come with its green crop. The very cows
are driven to their country pastures before the end of May;
though I have heard of one unnatural farmer who kept his cow in
the barn and fed her on hay all the year round. So, frequently,
the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge treats its
Walking |
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 In Darkest England and The Way Out by General William Booth: They had at noon a hot, nourishing dinner of soup and bread. Provisions
were either contributed or bought wholesale, and the economies of
cookery were carried to the last point of perfection. Count Rumford had
so planned the cooking apparatus that three women cooked a dinner for
one thousand persons at a cost though wood was used, of 4 1/2d. for
fuel; and the entire cost of the dinner for 1,200 was only #1 7s 6 1/2d.,
or about one-third of a penny for each person! Perfect order was kept
--at work, at meals, and everywhere. As soon as a company took its
place at table, the food having been previously served, all repeated a
short prayer. 'Perhaps,' says Count Rumford, 'I ought to ask pardon for
mentioning so old-fashioned a custom, but I own I am old-fashioned
In Darkest England and The Way Out |
