| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: was her invincible belief the colonies would be prostrate at the
footstool of the King. Sometimes she seemed to take for granted
that such was already the case. On one occasion, she startled the
townspeople by a brilliant illumination of the Province House,
with candles at every pane of glass, and a transparency of the
King's initials and a crown of light in the great balcony window.
The figure of the aged woman in the most gorgeous of her mildewed
velvets and brocades was seen passing from casement to casement,
until she paused before the balcony, and flourished a huge key
above her head. Her wrinkled visage actually gleamed with
triumph, as if the soul within her were a festal lamp.
Twice Told Tales |
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 My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: 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
thing, and declared that, with a little of her sister's spirit,
she might have brought to reason any Sir Philip whatsoever, were
it the termagant Falconbridge himself. But the greater part of
their acquaintance affected candour, and saw faults on both
sides--though, in fact, there only existed the oppressor and the
oppressed. The tone of such critics was, "To be sure, no one
will justify Sir Philip Forester, but then we all know Sir
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