| 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: I blamed none of those who repulsed me. I felt it was what was to
be expected, and what could not be helped: an ordinary beggar is
frequently an object of suspicion; a well-dressed beggar inevitably
so. To be sure, what I begged was employment; but whose business
was it to provide me with employment? Not, certainly, that of
persons who saw me then for the first time, and who knew nothing
about my character. And as to the woman who would not take my
handkerchief in exchange for her bread, why, she was right, if the
offer appeared to her sinister or the exchange unprofitable. Let me
condense now. I am sick of the subject.
A little before dark I passed a farm-house, at the open door of
Jane Eyre |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde: shameless enough to enter? Who told you where I had gone to? My
husband told you, and sent you to decoy me back. [Crosses L.]
MRS. ERLYNNE. [R.C.] Your husband has never seen the letter. I -
saw it, I opened it. I - read it.
LADY WINDERMERE. [Turning to her.] You opened a letter of mine to
my husband? You wouldn't dare!
MRS. ERLYNNE. Dare! Oh! to save you from the abyss into which you
are falling, there is nothing in the world I would not dare,
nothing in the whole world. Here is the letter. Your husband has
never read it. He never shall read it. [Going to fireplace.] It
should never have been written. [Tears it and throws it into the
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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 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: profit and enjoyment, people brought all their sorrows and
perplexities, and besought her counsel, as one who had herself
gone through a mighty trouble. Women, more especially -- in the
continually recurring trials of wounded, wasted, wronged,
misplaced, or erring and sinful passion -- or with the dreary
burden of a heart unyielded, because unvalued and unsought came
to Hester's cottage, demanding why they were so wretched, and
what the remedy! Hester comforted and counselled them, as best
she might. She assured them, too, of her firm belief that, at
some brighter period, when the world should have grown ripe for
it, in Heaven's own time, a new truth would be revealed, in order
The Scarlet Letter |
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 Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: "The evolution of the economic struggle demands from the
workers such forms of professional organization as, basing
themselves on the connection between various groups of
workers in the process of production, should unite
within a general organization, and under general leadership,
as large masses of workers as possible occupied in
enterprises of the same kind, or in similar professions. With
this object the workers should organize themselves
professionally, not by shops or trades, but by productions, so
that all the workers of a given enterprise should belong to
one Union, even if they belong to different professions and
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