| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery: and frilly and clinging. The muslin is stiff, and makes you look too
dressed up. But the organdy seems as if it grew on you."
Anne sighed and yielded. Diana was beginning to have a
reputation for notable taste in dressing, and her advice on such
subjects was much sought after. She was looking very pretty
herself on this particular night in a dress of the lovely
wild-rose pink, from which Anne was forever debarred; but she was
not to take any part in the concert, so her appearance was of
minor importance. All her pains were bestowed upon Anne, who,
she vowed, must, for the credit of Avonlea, be dressed and combed
and adorned to the Queen's taste.
Anne of Green Gables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The School For Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan: see I bear the accident with Calmness.
LADY SNEERWELL. Because the Disappointment hasn't reached your
HEART--your interest only attached you to Maria--had you felt for
her--what I have for that ungrateful Libertine--neither your Temper
nor Hypocrisy could prevent your showing the sharpness of your
Vexation.
SURFACE. But why should your Reproaches fall on me for this
Disappointment?
LADY SNEERWELL. Are not you the cause of it? what had you to bate
in your Pursuit of Maria to pervert Lady Teazle by the way.--had you
not a sufficient field for your Roguery in blinding Sir Peter and
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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 Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri: Gautier says, it is absolutely useless to dispute about
consequences when we start from premisses so opposed to each other
as retributive justice, according to which every fault demands a
proportional punishment--``fiat justitia pereat mundus''--and
social defence, according to which a justice without social
advantage is an unjust justice, afflicted with metaphysical
degeneracy.
The second objection appears to me to have no better foundation,
for the disadvantages of punishments by short terms of
imprisonment are organic and inevitable defects. There is no
chance of their practical amelioration, for they have all been
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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 The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: along with it, and pray for me). This is why. If I recover, I
feel called on to write a volume of gods and demi-gods in exile:
Pan, Jove, Cybele, Venus, Charon, etc.; and though I should like to
take them very free, I should like to know a little about 'em to
begin with. For two days, till last night, I had no night sweats,
and my cough is almost gone, and I digest well; so all looks
hopeful. However, I was near the other side of Jordan. I send the
proof of THOREAU to you, so that you may correct and fill up the
quotation from Goethe. It is a pity I was ill, as, for matter, I
think I prefer that to any of my essays except Burns; but the
style, though quite manly, never attains any melody or lenity. So
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