| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: securing his recommendation. This I knew could be had by asking
for it; not to ask, because the request revolted my pride and
contradicted my habits, would, I felt, be an indulgence of false
and indolent fastidiousness. I might repent the omission all my
life; I would not then be guilty of it.
That evening I went to M. Vandenhuten's; but I had bent the bow
and adjusted the shaft in vain; the string broke. I rang the
bell at the great door (it was a large, handsome house in an
expensive part of the town); a manservant opened; I asked for M.
Vandenhuten; M. Vandenhuten and family were all out of town
--gone to Ostend--did not know when they would be back. I left
The Professor |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: possessing different languages and religions, and who were easily
vanquished by Caesar because he always found allies among them?
It was Rome that made a country of Gaul by endowing it with
political and religious unity. Without going back so far,
scarcely two centuries ago, is it to be believed that this same
notion of a fatherland was conceived to have the same meaning as
at present by French princes like the great Conde, who allied
themselves with the foreigner against their sovereign? And yet
again, the same word had it not a sense very different from the
modern for the French royalist emigrants, who thought they obeyed
the laws of honour in fighting against France, and who from their
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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 Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: Romans, too, are reserved as sort of GENERAL-UTILITY men, to
do all the dirty work of illustration; and they fill as many
functions as the famous waterfall scene at the 'Princess's,'
which I found doing duty on one evening as a gorge in Peru, a
haunt of German robbers, and a peaceful vale in the Scottish
borders. There is a sad absence of striking argument or real
lively discussion. Indeed, you feel a growing contempt for
your fellow-members; and it is not until you rise yourself to
hawk and hesitate and sit shamefully down again, amid
eleemosynary applause, that you begin to find your level and
value others rightly. Even then, even when failure has
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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 Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: and his friends gallantly threw themselves into the breach, bought
up the bouquets, encamped before the table, and made that corner
the liveliest spot in the room. Amy was in her element now, and out
of gratitude, if nothing more, was as spritely and gracious as possible,
coming to the conclusion, about that time, that virtue was
it's own reward, after all.
Jo behaved herself with exemplary propriety, and when Amy was
happily surrounded by her guard of honor, Jo circulated about the
hall, picking up various bits of gossip, which enlightened her upon
the subject of the Chester change of base. She reproached herself
for her share of the ill feeling and resolved to exonerate Amy as
Little Women |
