| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: Guide,' read it with prayer, especially that part containing 'An
account of the awfully sudden death of Martha G -, a naughty child
addicted to falsehood and deceit.'"
With these words Mr. Brocklehurst put into my hand a thin pamphlet
sewn in a cover, and having rung for his carriage, he departed.
Mrs. Reed and I were left alone: some minutes passed in silence;
she was sewing, I was watching her. Mrs. Reed might be at that time
some six or seven and thirty; she was a woman of robust frame,
square-shouldered and strong-limbed, not tall, and, though stout,
not obese: she had a somewhat large face, the under jaw being much
developed and very solid; her brow was low, her chin large and
Jane Eyre |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: And are they parts, I said, in the same sense in which mouth, nose, and
eyes, and ears, are the parts of a face; or are they like the parts of
gold, which differ from the whole and from one another only in being larger
or smaller?
I should say that they differed, Socrates, in the first way; they are
related to one another as the parts of a face are related to the whole
face.
And do men have some one part and some another part of virtue? Or if a man
has one part, must he also have all the others?
By no means, he said; for many a man is brave and not just, or just and not
wise.
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: men reck not of now, that they hardly believe in, that woman died. But in
the heads of certain men and women a new thought had taken root; they said,
'We also will not eat of her. There is something evil in the taste of
human flesh.' And ever after, when the fleshpots were filled with man-
flesh, these stood aside, and half the tribe ate human flesh and half not;
then, as the years passed, none ate.
"Even in those days, which men reck not of now, when men fell easily open
their hands and knees, they were of us on the earth. And, if you would
learn a secret, even before man trod here, in the days when the dicynodont
bent yearningly over her young, and the river-horse which you find now
nowhere on earth's surface, save buried in stone, called with love to his
|
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 Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: crouching. He came near. It was not the man--those Dutchmen are all
alike. We suffered the anguish of deception. In my sleep I saw her
face, and was both joyful and sorry. . . . Why? . . . I seemed to hear
a whisper near me. I turned swiftly. She was not there! And as we
trudged wearily from stone city to stone city I seemed to hear a light
footstep near me. A time came when I heard it always, and I was glad.
I thought, walking dizzy and weary in sunshine on the hard paths of
white men I thought, She is there--with us! . . . Matara was sombre.
We were often hungry.
"We sold the carved sheaths of our krisses--the ivory sheaths with
golden ferules. We sold the jewelled hilts. But we kept the
Tales of Unrest |
