| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: "Open the windows!--but surely, Mr. Churchill, nobody would think
of opening the windows at Randalls. Nobody could be so imprudent!
I never heard of such a thing. Dancing with open windows!--I am sure,
neither your father nor Mrs. Weston (poor Miss Taylor that was)
would suffer it."
"Ah! sir--but a thoughtless young person will sometimes step behind
a window-curtain, and throw up a sash, without its being suspected.
I have often known it done myself."
"Have you indeed, sir?--Bless me! I never could have supposed it.
But I live out of the world, and am often astonished at what I hear.
However, this does make a difference; and, perhaps, when we come
Emma |
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 Time Machine by H. G. Wells: Filby. But the Time Traveller had more than a touch of whim
among his elements, and we distrusted him. Things that would
have made the frame of a less clever man seemed tricks in his
hands. It is a mistake to do things too easily. The serious
people who took him seriously never felt quite sure of his
deportment; they were somehow aware that trusting their
reputations for judgment with him was like furnishing a nursery
with egg-shell china. So I don't think any of us said very much
about time travelling in the interval between that Thursday and
the next, though its odd potentialities ran, no doubt, in most of
our minds: its plausibility, that is, its practical
The Time Machine |
