| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: he called it to himself, in his present mode of life. "It's not
right to go on like this," he thought. "It'll soon be three
months, and I'm doing next to nothing. To-day, almost for the
first time, I set to work seriously, and what happened? I did
nothing but begin and throw it aside. Even my ordinary pursuits I
have almost given up. On the land I scarcely walk or drive about
at all to look after things. Either I am loath to leave her, or I
see she's dull alone. And I used to think that, before marriage,
life was nothing much, somehow didn't count, but that after
marriage, life began in earnest. And here almost three months
have passed, and I have spent my time so idly and unprofitably.
Anna Karenina |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lady Susan by Jane Austen: if a syllable of his uttering escapes her. I want to make him sensible of
all this, for we know the power of gratitude on such a heart as his; and
could Frederica's artless affection detach him from her mother, we might
bless the day which brought her to Churchhill. I think, my dear mother, you
would not disapprove of her as a daughter. She is extremely young, to be
sure, has had a wretched education, and a dreadful example of levity in her
mother; but yet I can pronounce her disposition to be excellent, and her
natural abilities very good. Though totally without accomplishments, she is
by no means so ignorant as one might expect to find her, being fond of
books and spending the chief of her time in reading. Her mother leaves her
more to herself than she did, and I have her with me as much as possible,
Lady Susan |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Collection of Beatrix Potter by Beatrix Potter: shall sell them and buy myself
baccy!"
"Rabbit tobacco! I shall
skin them and cut off their
heads."
MRS. McGREGOR untied
the sack and put her
hand inside.
When she felt the vegetables
she became very very angry.
She said that Mr. McGregor
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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 An Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac: spending half her income and of laying by the rest for her daughter
Berthe.
Berthe is the living image of her mother, but without her warrior
nerve; she is her mother in delicacy, in intellect,--"more a woman,"
Laurence says, sadly. The marquise was not willing to marry her
daughter until she was twenty years of age. Her savings, judiciously
invested in the Funds by old Monsieur d'Hauteserre at the moment when
consols fell in 1830, gave Berthe a dowry of eighty thousand francs a
year in 1833, when she was twenty.
About that time the Princesse de Cadignan, who was seeking to marry
her son, the Duc de Maufrigneuse, brought him into intimate relations
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