| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson: Prayer from a living source within the will,
And beating up thro' all the bitter world,
Like fountains of sweet water in the sea,
Kept him a living soul. `This miller's wife'
He said to Miriam `that you told me of,
Has she no fear that her first husband lives?'
`Ay ay, poor soul' said Miriam, `fear enow!
If you could tell her you had seen him dead,
Why, that would be her comfort;' and he thought
`After the Lord has call'd me she shall know,
I wait His time' and Enoch set himself,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: must be where he can "see the folks," and recreate, and, as he
thinks, remunerate himself for his day's solitude; and hence he
wonders how the student can sit alone in the house all night and
most of the day without ennui and "the blues"; but he does not
realize that the student, though in the house, is still at work in
his field, and chopping in his woods, as the farmer in his, and in
turn seeks the same recreation and society that the latter does,
though it may be a more condensed form of it.
Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals,
not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We
meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of
Walden |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: don't hate you. I'm not angry that you struck me. Have you never
loved ANYBODY in all your life, uncle? NEVER? Ah! you must look
once. I'm so wretched, you can't help being sorry and pitying me.'
'Keep your eft's fingers off; and move, or I'll kick you!' cried
Heathcliff, brutally repulsing her. 'I'd rather be hugged by a
snake. How the devil can you dream of fawning on me? I DETEST
you!'
He shrugged his shoulders: shook himself, indeed, as if his flesh
crept with aversion; and thrust back his chair; while I got up, and
opened my mouth, to commence a downright torrent of abuse. But I
was rendered dumb in the middle of the first sentence, by a threat
Wuthering Heights |
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 Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: of women in our modern societies are so placed as to be absolutely
compelled to go through life not merely childless, but without sex
relationship in any form whatever; while another mighty army of women is
reduced by the dislocations of our civilisation to accepting sexual
relationships which practically negate child-bearing, and whose only
product is physical and moral disease.
Thus, it has come to pass that vast numbers of us are, by modern social
conditions, prohibited from child-bearing at all; and that even those among
us who are child-bearers are required, in proportion as the class of race
to which we belong stands high in the scale of civilisation, to produce in
most cases a limited number of offspring; so that even for these of us,
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