| 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: containing the sudden death of the Liar, to which narrative my
attention had been pointed as to an appropriate warning. What had
just passed; what Mrs. Reed had said concerning me to Mr.
Brocklehurst; the whole tenor of their conversation, was recent,
raw, and stinging in my mind; I had felt every word as acutely as I
had heard it plainly, and a passion of resentment fomented now
within me.
Mrs. Reed looked up from her work; her eye settled on mine, her
fingers at the same time suspended their nimble movements.
"Go out of the room; return to the nursery," was her mandate. My
look or something else must have struck her as offensive, for she
Jane Eyre |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling: to conquer Gaul, he used to send the garrisons more wine
- to keep them quiet, I suppose. On the Wall, we always
called a wine-skin a "Maximus". Oh, yes; and I had
drawn them in Imperial helmets.
"'Not long since," he went on, "men's names were
sent up to Caesar for smaller jokes than this."
"'True, Caesar," said Pertinax; "but you forget that
was before I, your friend's friend, became such a
good spear-thrower."
'He did not actually point his hunting-spear at
Maximus, but balanced it on his palm - so!
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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 Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: allowed herself a housemaid, and she exerted her old-maidish energy in
taking stock of everything, examining everything, and arranging in
every respect for the comfort of her dear Marshal. Lisbeth, quite as
Republican as he could be, pleased him by her democratic opinions, and
she flattered him with amazing dexterity; for the last fortnight the
old man, whose house was better kept, and who was cared for as a child
by its mother, had begun to regard Lisbeth as a part of what he had
dreamed of.
"My dear Marshal," she shouted, following him out on to the steps,
"pull up the windows, do not sit in a draught, to oblige me!"
The Marshal, who had never been so cosseted in his life, went off
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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 Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: presented a scene of uncommon beauty, and of a character
peculiarly English.
The little town, with its stately old church, whose tower bore
testimony to the devotion of ages long past, lay amidst pastures
and cornfields of small extent, but bounded and divided with
hedgerow timber of great age and size. There were few marks of
modern improvement. The environs of the place intimated neither
the solitude of decay nor the bustle of novelty; the houses were
old, but in good repair; and the beautiful little river murmured
freely on its way to the left of the town, neither restrained by
a dam nor bordered by a towing-path.
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