| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: something like an apoplectic fit, followed by a rather severe brain
fever - '
'And what did you think of yourself, sir?' said I, quickly.
'Of course, I was very penitent,' he replied. 'I went to see him
once or twice - nay, twice or thrice - or by'r lady, some four
times - and when he got better, I tenderly brought him back to the
fold.'
'What do you mean?'
'I mean, I restored him to the bosom of the club, and
compassionating the feebleness of his health and extreme lowness of
his spirits, I recommended him to "take a little wine for his
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: It bears the song of the skylark down,
And it hears the singing of the town;
And youth on the highways
And lovers in byways
Follows and sees:
And hearkens the song of the leas
And sings the songs of the highways.
So when the earth is alive with gods,
And the lusty ploughman breaks the sod,
And the grass sings in the meadows,
And the flowers smile in the shadows,
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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 The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: intelligence of the brute and the intelligence of the angels." As he
stated it, the divine Word nourishes the spiritual Word, the spiritual
Word nourishes the living Word, the living Word nourishes the animal
Word, the animal Word nourishes the vegetable Word, and the vegetable
Word is the expression of the life of the barren Word. These
successive evolutions, as of a chrysalis, which God thus wrought in
our souls, this infusorial life, so to speak, communicated from each
zone to the next, more vivid, more spiritual, more perceptive in its
ascent, represented, rather dimly no doubt, but marvelously enough to
his inexperienced hearers, the impulse given to Nature by the
Almighty. Supported by many texts from the Sacred Scriptures, which he
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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 Adam Bede by George Eliot: to that unsoaped lazy class of feminine characters with whom you
may venture to "eat an egg, an apple, or a nut." All this she was
generally conscious of, and hitherto had not been greatly ashamed
of it. But now she began to feel very much as if the constable
had come to take her up and carry her before the justice for some
undefined offence. She had a terrified sense that God, whom she
had always thought of as very far off, was very near to her, and
that Jesus was close by looking at her, though she could not see
him. For Dinah had that belief in visible manifestations of
Jesus, which is common among the Methodists, and she communicated
it irresistibly to her hearers: she made them feel that he was
Adam Bede |
