| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: big house "where he was sure the governor lived." From Australia,
they sailed some time, and reached an anchorage where a consul-
general came on board, and where Laupepa was only allowed on deck
at night. He could then see the lights of a town with wharves; he
supposes Cape Town. Off the Cameroons they anchored or lay-to, far
at sea, and sent a boat ashore to see (he supposes) that there was
no British man-of-war. It was the next morning before the boat
returned, when the ALBATROSS stood in and came to anchor near
another German ship. Here Alualu came to him on deck and told him
this was the place. "That is an astonishing thing," said he. "I
thought I was to go to Germany, I do not know what this means; I do
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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: about for a place of rest. His heart was so exacerbated at
parting from the girl that he could not face an inn, or even
a household of the most humble kind; and entering a field he
lay down under a wheatrick, feeling no want of food. The
very heaviness of his soul caused him to sleep profoundly.
The bright autumn sun shining into his eyes across the
stubble awoke him the next morning early. He opened his
basket and ate for his breakfast what he had packed for his
supper; and in doing so overhauled the remainder of his kit.
Although everything he brought necessitated carriage at his
own back, he had secreted among his tools a few of
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 My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: as her judgment was weak, was more painful perhaps than absolute
ill-usage. Sir Philip was a voluptuary--that is, a completely
selfish egotist--whose disposition and character resembled the
rapier he wore, polished, keen, and brilliant, but inflexible and
unpitying. As he observed carefully all the usual forms towards
his lady, he had the art to deprive her even of the compassion of
the world; and useless and unavailing as that may be while
actually possessed by the sufferer, it is, to a mind like Lady
Forester's, most painful to know she has it not.
The tattle of society did its best to place the peccant husband
above the suffering wife. Some called her a poor, spiritless
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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 Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: [1] Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882), champion of the orthodoxy
of revealed religion, defender of the Oxford movement, and Regius
professor of Hebrew and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford.
When St. Clare had first returned from the north, impressed
with the system and order of his uncle's kitchen arrangements, he
had largely provided his own with an array of cupboards, drawers,
and various apparatus, to induce systematic regulation, under the
sanguine illusion that it would be of any possible assistance to
Dinah in her arrangements. He might as well have provided them
for a squirrel or a magpie. The more drawers and closets there
were, the more hiding-holes could Dinah make for the accommodation
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
