| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: to refuse for the monastery,' he explained, 'but I should prefer if
you would give it to one of the brothers.'
I had dined alone, because I arrived late; but at supper I found
two other guests. One was a country parish priest, who had walked
over that morning from the seat of his cure near Mende to enjoy
four days of solitude and prayer. He was a grenadier in person,
with the hale colour and circular wrinkles of a peasant; and as he
complained much of how he had been impeded by his skirts upon the
march, I have a vivid fancy portrait of him, striding along,
upright, big-boned, with kilted cassock, through the bleak hills of
Gevaudan. The other was a short, grizzling, thick-set man, from
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: after thinking a moment. "Very few. We told you about the laundry-door,
at Uppercross. That has been a very great improvement.
The wonder was, how any family upon earth could bear with the inconvenience
of its opening as it did, so long! You will tell Sir Walter
what we have done, and that Mr Shepherd thinks it the greatest improvement
the house ever had. Indeed, I must do ourselves the justice to say,
that the few alterations we have made have been all very much
for the better. My wife should have the credit of them, however.
I have done very little besides sending away some of the large
looking-glasses from my dressing-room, which was your father's.
A very good man, and very much the gentleman I am sure:
Persuasion |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: ``Stand forth distinguish'd from the circling crowd,
Ye who by skill or manly force may claim,
Your rivals to surpass and merit fame.
This cow, worth twenty oxen, is decreed,
For him who farthest sends the winged reed.''
_Iliad_.
The name of Ivanhoe was no sooner pronounced
than it flew from mouth to mouth, with all the celerity
with which eagerness could convey and curiosity
receive it. It was not long ere it reached the
circle of the Prince, whose brow darkened as he
Ivanhoe |
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 Emma by Jane Austen: "Only think! well, that must be infinitely provoking! I have quite
a horror of upstarts. Maple Grove has given me a thorough disgust
to people of that sort; for there is a family in that neighbourhood
who are such an annoyance to my brother and sister from the airs
they give themselves! Your description of Mrs. Churchill made me
think of them directly. People of the name of Tupman, very lately
settled there, and encumbered with many low connexions, but giving
themselves immense airs, and expecting to be on a footing with the old
established families. A year and a half is the very utmost that they can
have lived at West Hall; and how they got their fortune nobody knows.
They came from Birmingham, which is not a place to promise much,
Emma |
