| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: the teachings of the Gospel. I am dying peacefully simply because
I have come to know that teaching and believe in it. May God grant
you this knowledge soon! Good-by."
I kissed his hand and left the room quietly. When I got to
the front door, I rushed to a lonely stone tower, and there sobbed
my heart out in the darkness like a child. Looking round at last,
I saw that some one else was sitting on the staircase near me, also
crying.
So I said farewell to my father years before his death, and
the memory of it is dear to me, for I know that if I had seen him
before his death at Astapova he would have said just the same to
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: glare such as I never saw before or since. Pain, shame, ire,
impatience, disgust, detestation, seemed momentarily to hold a
quivering conflict in the large pupil dilating under his ebon
eyebrow. Wild was the wrestle which should be paramount; but
another feeling rose and triumphed: something hard and cynical:
self-willed and resolute: it settled his passion and petrified his
countenance: he went on -
"During the moment I was silent, Miss Eyre, I was arranging a point
with my destiny. She stood there, by that beech-trunk--a hag like
one of those who appeared to Macbeth on the heath of Forres. 'You
like Thornfield?' she said, lifting her finger; and then she wrote
Jane Eyre |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: performance was not the less difficult or nice, however, in these,
and they thrive perfectly well.
While the gardens were thus laid out, the king also directed the
laying the pipes for the fountains and JET-D'EAUX, and particularly
the dimensions of them, and what quantity of water they should cast
up, and increased the number of them after the first design.
The ground on the side of the other front has received some
alterations since the taking down the Water Galley; but not that
part immediately next the lodgings. The orange-trees and fine
Dutch bays are placed within the arches of the building under the
first floor; so that the lower part of the house was all one as a
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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 The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: past nor intimate the future. The single NOW is all which he can
present; and hence, unquestionably, many subjects which delight
us in poetry or in narrative, whether real or fictitious, cannot
with advantage be transferred to the canvas.
Being in some degree aware of these difficulties, though
doubtless unacquainted both with their extent and the means by
which they may be modified or surmounted, I have, nevertheless,
ventured to draw up the following traditional narrative as a
story in which, when the general details are known, the interest
is so much concentrated in one strong moment of agonizing
passion, that it can be understood and sympathized with at a
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