| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: place?"
"It is a compliment which I never play to any place if I can avoid
it."
"You have a house in town, I conclude?"
Mr. Darcy bowed.
"I had once had some thought of fixing in town myself-- for I am
fond of superior society; but I did not feel quite certain that the
air of London would agree with Lady Lucas."
He paused in hopes of an answer; but his companion was not
disposed to make any; and Elizabeth at that instant moving
towards them, he was struck with the action of doing a very
Pride and Prejudice |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: of him a hero or a convict; of these there was not one that had failed
to leave its traces on the grandly-hewn, lividly Italian face. You
trembled lest a flash of thought should suddenly light up the deep
sightless hollows under the grizzled brows, as you might fear to see
brigands with torches and poniards in the mouth of a cavern. You felt
that there was a lion in that cage of flesh, a lion spent with useless
raging against iron bars. The fires of despair had burned themselves
out into ashes, the lava had cooled; but the tracks of the flames, the
wreckage, and a little smoke remained to bear witness to the violence
of the eruption, the ravages of the fire. These images crowded up at
the sight of the clarionet player, till the thoughts now grown cold in
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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 Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence: dead. And when she thought of him, the old, old grudge against the
world rose up, but especially against the masters, that they had killed
him. They had not really killed him. Yet, to her, emotionally, they
had. And somewhere deep in herself because of it, she was a nihilist,
and really anarchic.
In her half-sleep, thoughts of her Ted and thoughts of Lady
Chatterley's unknown lover commingled, and then she felt she shared
with the other woman a great grudge against Sir Clifford and all he
stood for. At the same time she was playing piquet with him, and they
were gambling sixpences. And it was a source of satisfaction to be
playing piquet with a baronet, and even losing sixpences to him.
Lady Chatterley's Lover |
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 A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: argument on the Third Commandment, and is repeated at every
Commandment thereafter, while before this the sections were
consecutively numbered. But in spite of this, the plan of the
whole is clear and lucid. Evidently the whole treatise is divided
into two parts: the first comprising sections 1-17, while the
second comprises all the following sections. The first, being
fundamental, is the more important part. Luther well knew of the
charges made against him that "faith is so highly elevated" and
"works are rejected" by him; but he knew, too, that "neither
silver, gold and precious stone, nor any other precious thing had
experienced so much augmentation and diminution" as had good
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