| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: morgen, and the rams real angora, and two thousand sheep, and a short-horn
bull," said Tant Sannie, standing upright and planting a hand on each hip.
Em looked at her in silent wonder. Had connubial bliss and the joys of
motherhood really turned the old Boer-woman's head?
"Yes," said Tant Sannie; "I had almost forgotten to tell you. By the Lord
if I had him here! We were walking to church last Sacrament Sunday, Piet
and I. Close in front of us with old Tant Trana, with dropsy and cancer,
and can't live eight months. Walking by her was something with its hands
under its coat-tails, flap, flap, flap; and its chin in the air, and a
stick-up collar, and the black hat on the very back of the head. I knew
him! 'Who's that?' I asked. 'The rich Englishman that Tant Trana married
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Two Noble Kinsmen by William Shakespeare: Cure her first this way, then if shee will be honest,
She has the path before her.
IAILOR.
Thanke yee, Doctor.
DOCTOR.
Pray, bring her in,
And let's see how shee is.
IAILOR.
I will, and tell her
Her Palamon staies for her: But, Doctor,
Me thinkes you are i'th wrong still. [Exit Iaylor.]
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: with us, what advantage would it be to us that they should be
called to an account for it? - or if we were first to be murdered,
what satisfaction would it be to us to have them punished when they
came home?
I cannot refrain taking notice here what reflections I now had upon
the vast variety of my particular circumstances; how hard I thought
it that I, who had spent forty years in a life of continual
difficulties, and was at last come, as it were, to the port or
haven which all men drive at, viz. to have rest and plenty, should
be a volunteer in new sorrows by my own unhappy choice, and that I,
who had escaped so many dangers in my youth, should now come to be
Robinson Crusoe |
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 Confidence by Henry James: When Bernard reproached himself for thinking too much of the girl,
he drew comfort from the reflection that he was not thinking well.
To let it gradually filter into one's mind, through a superficial
complexity of more reverent preconceptions, that she was an extremely
clever coquette--this, surely, was not to think well! Bernard had
luminous glimpses of another situation, in which Angela Vivian's
coquetry should meet with a different appreciation; but just now it
was not an item to be entered on the credit side of Wright's account.
Bernard wiped his pen, mentally speaking, as he made this reflection,
and felt like a grizzled old book-keeper, of incorruptible probity.
He saw her, as I have said, very often; she continued to break her
|
