| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: time to prepare the rooms for our reception, and we should find
them all dark, damp, and comfortless, destitute of food, fire, and
furniture, after all our toil?
At length the grim, dark pile appeared before us. The lane
conducted us round by the back way. We entered the desolate court,
and in breathless anxiety surveyed the ruinous mass. Was it all
blackness and desolation? No; one faint red glimmer cheered us
from a window where the lattice was in good repair. The door was
fastened, but after due knocking and waiting, and some parleying
with a voice from an upper window, we were admitted by an old woman
who had been commissioned to air and keep the house till our
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: by the inhabitants passing up and down from the docks. These
were defended by gates of bronze, and also, as we afterwards
learnt, it was possible to let down a portion of the roadways
themselves by withdrawing certain bolts, and thus render it quite
impracticable for an enemy to pass. The third entrance consisted
of a flight of ten curved black marble steps leading to a doorway
cut in the palace wall. This wall was in itself a work of art,
being built of huge blocks of granite to the height of forty
feet, and so fashioned that its face was concave, whereby it
was rendered practically impossible for it to be scaled. To
this doorway our guide led us. The door, which was massive,
Allan Quatermain |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: and do wrong involuntarily? Surely there is a great excuse to be made for
a man telling a falsehood, or doing an injury or any sort of harm to
another in ignorance. And the laws are obviously far more severe on those
who lie or do evil, voluntarily, than on those who do evil involuntarily.
SOCRATES: You see, Hippias, as I have already told you, how pertinacious I
am in asking questions of wise men. And I think that this is the only good
point about me, for I am full of defects, and always getting wrong in some
way or other. My deficiency is proved to me by the fact that when I meet
one of you who are famous for wisdom, and to whose wisdom all the Hellenes
are witnesses, I am found out to know nothing. For speaking generally, I
hardly ever have the same opinion about anything which you have, and what
|
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 Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: "Stop! Make that fire burn there!" cried Kirby, stopping short.
The flame burst out, flashing the gaunt figure into bold relief.
Mitchell drew a long breath.
"I thought it was alive," he said, going up curiously.
The others followed.
"Not marble, eh?" asked Kirby, touching it.
One of the lower overseers stopped.
"Korl, Sir."
"Who did it?"
"Can't say. Some of the hands; chipped it out in off-hours."
"Chipped to some purpose, I should say. What a flesh-tint the
Life in the Iron-Mills |
