| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Octopus by Frank Norris: life of them and the hearts of them by God Himself. To that they
had been born. For this love's sake they had come into the
world, and the mingling of their lives was to be the Perfect
Life, the intended, ordained union of the soul of man with the
soul of woman, indissoluble, harmonious as music, beautiful
beyond all thought, a foretaste of Heaven, a hostage of
immortality.
No, he, Vanamee, could never, never forget, never was the edge of
his grief to lose its sharpness, never would the lapse of time
blunt the tooth of his pain. Once more, as he sat there, looking
off across the ranches, his eyes fixed on the ancient campanile
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: sense of shame in their ruin. Their hands were mostly kept
in their pockets; they wore a leather strap round their hips
or knees, and boots that required a great deal of lacing,
but seemed never to get any. Instead of sighing at their
adversities they spat, and instead of saying the iron had
entered into their souls they said they were down on their
luck. Jopp in his time of distress had often stood here; so
had Mother Cuxsom, Christopher Coney, and poor Abel Whittle.
The miserables who would pause on the remoter bridge
were of a politer stamp. They included bankrupts,
hypochondriacs, persons who were what is called "out of a
The Mayor of Casterbridge |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather: "Ah, you saw Mrs. Alexander?"
"Often. I dined with her, and had tea
there a dozen different times, I should think.
Indeed, it was to see her that I lingered on
and on. I found that I still loved to go to the
house. It always seemed as if Bartley were
there, somehow, and that at any moment one
might hear his heavy tramp on the stairs. Do
you know, I kept feeling that he must be up
in his study." The Professor looked reflectively
into the grate. "I should really have liked
Alexander's Bridge |
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 Timaeus by Plato: as far as necessity allowed or gave consent, has exactly perfected, and
harmonized in due proportion.
From all that we have just been saying about the elements or kinds, the
most probable conclusion is as follows:--earth, when meeting with fire and
dissolved by its sharpness, whether the dissolution take place in the fire
itself or perhaps in some mass of air or water, is borne hither and
thither, until its parts, meeting together and mutually harmonising, again
become earth; for they can never take any other form. But water, when
divided by fire or by air, on re-forming, may become one part fire and two
parts air; and a single volume of air divided becomes two of fire. Again,
when a small body of fire is contained in a larger body of air or water or
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