| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: have to do this as expeditiously as possible, so that they
may not unduly interrupt the work in hand; nobody helps them,
notices them, or cares about them, least of all the husband.
It is quite a usual thing to see them working in the fields
in the morning, and working again in the afternoon, having in
the interval produced a baby. The baby is left to an old
woman whose duty it is to look after babies collectively.
When I expressed my horror at the poor creatures working
immediately afterwards as though nothing had happened, the Man
of Wrath informed me that they did not suffer because they had
never worn corsets, nor had their mothers and grandmothers.
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: The Irishwoman, too, was walking up to the house to beg, - she must
have got round by some byway - but she threw away her bundle, and
gave chase to Tom likewise. Only my Lady did not give chase; for
when she had put her head out of the window, her night-wig fell
into the garden, and she had to ring up her lady's-maid, and send
her down for it privately, which quite put her out of the running,
so that she came in nowhere, and is consequently not placed.
In a word, never was there heard at Hall Place - not even when the
fox was killed in the conservatory, among acres of broken glass,
and tons of smashed flower-pots - such a noise, row, hubbub, babel,
shindy, hullabaloo, stramash, charivari, and total contempt of
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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 Heroes by Charles Kingsley: across, as the bronze came down upon it. Then Theseus heaved
up another mighty stroke, and smote Sinis down upon his face;
and knelt upon his back, and bound him with his own cord, and
said, 'As thou hast done to others, so shall it be done to
thee.' Then he bent down two young fir-trees, and bound
Sinis between them for all his struggling and his prayers;
and let them go, and ended Sinis, and went on, leaving him to
the hawks and crows.
Then he went over the hills toward Megara, keeping close
along the Saronic Sea, till he came to the cliffs of Sciron,
and the narrow path between the mountain and the sea.
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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 Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson: stirs good blood. People do not all look equally sour
and downcast. They fall into two divisions: one, the
knight of the blue face and hollow paunch, whom Winter
has gotten by the vitals; the other well lined with New-
year's fare, conscious of the touch of cold on his
periphery, but stepping through it by the glow of his
internal fires. Such an one I remember, triply cased in
grease, whom no extremity of temperature could vanquish.
'Well,' would be his jovial salutation, 'here's a
sneezer!' And the look of these warm fellows is tonic,
and upholds their drooping fellow-townsmen. There is yet
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