| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: doesn't work."
"Every one must be experimental," said Mr. Manning, and glanced
round hastily for further horticultural points of interest in
secluded corners. None presented themselves to save him from
that return.
"That's all very well when one isn't the material experimented
upon," Ann Veronica had remarked.
"Women would--they DO have far more power than they think, as
influences, as inspirations."
Ann Veronica said nothing in answer to that.
"You say you want a vote," said Mr. Manning, abruptly.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: "I do not wish to allege anything against her. Did she never mention
her mother to you at all?"
"I have heard her say that she thought her mother did not know the
reason of her running away. She said `poor mother' in a pitying tone."
"That mother became my wife," said Bulstrode, and then paused a
moment before he added, "you have a claim on me, Mr. Ladislaw: as I
said before, not a legal claim, but one which my conscience recognizes.
I was enriched by that marriage--a result which would probably
not have taken place--certainly not to the same extent--if your
grandmother could have discovered her daughter. That daughter,
I gather, is no longer living!"
Middlemarch |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: in the first stage of visible existence, between him and the lower
mammals, then he has a right to answer--as he will answer--So much
the worse for the microscope and scalpel: so much the better for my
old belief, that there is beneath my birth, life, death, a
substratum of supernatural causes, imponderable, invisible,
unknowable by any physical science whatsoever. If you cannot render
me a reason how I came hither, and what I am, I must go to those who
will render me one. And if that craving be not satisfied by a
rational theory of life, it will demand satisfaction from some
magical theory; as did the mind of the eighteenth century when,
revolting from materialism, it fled to magic, to explain the ever-
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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 Pierre Grassou by Honore de Balzac: was called Elie Magus, interrupted himself to laugh an uncanny laugh
which frightened the painter. He fancied he heard Mephistopheles
talking marriage.
"Portraits bring five hundred francs apiece," went on Elie; "so you
can very well afford to paint me three pictures."
"True for you!" cried Fougeres, gleefully.
"And if you marry the girl, you won't forget me."
"Marry! I?" cried Pierre Grassou,--"I, who have a habit of sleeping
alone; and get up at cock-crow, and all my life arranged--"
"One hundred thousand francs," said Magus, "and a quiet girl, full of
golden tones, as you call 'em, like a Titian."
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