| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: a hilly and pastoral district of Roxburghshire, which, on a part
of its boundary, is divided from England only by a small river.
During the good old times of RUGGING AND RIVING--that is, tugging
and tearing--under which term the disorderly doings of the
warlike age are affectionately remembered, this valley was
principally cultivated by the sept or clan of the Armstrongs.
The chief of this warlike race was the Laird of Mangerton. At
the period of which I speak, the estate of Mangerton, with the
power and dignity of chief, was possessed by John Armstrong, a
man of great size, strength, and courage. While his father was
alive, he was distinguished from others of his clan who bore the
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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 Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: What Henchard had written in the anguish of his dying was
respected as far as practicable by Elizabeth-Jane, though
less from a sense of the sacredness of last words, as such,
than from her independent knowledge that the man who wrote
them meant what he said. She knew the directions to be a
piece of the same stuff that his whole life was made of, and
hence were not to be tampered with to give herself a
mournful pleasure, or her husband credit for large-
heartedness.
All was over at last, even her regrets for having
misunderstood him on his last visit, for not having searched
The Mayor of Casterbridge |
