| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lemorne Versus Huell by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard: "Step in, step in; it's very late. I should have been in bed but
for neuralgia. Did Mr. Uxbridge come home with you, Margaret?"
"Yes, in Mrs. Bliss's carriage; I wished to come before she was
ready to leave."
"Well, Mr. Uxbridge is old enough for your protector, certainly."
"I *am* forty, ma'am."
"Do you want Margaret?"
"I do."
"You know exactly how much is involved in your client's suit?"
"Exactly."
"You know also that his claim is an unjust one."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson: So mark mine well. But why do you smile so?
Pity, or what? Is it written all over,
This face of mine, with a brute's confession?
Nothing but sin there? nothing but hell-scars?
Or is it because there is something better --
A glimmer of good, maybe -- or a shadow
Of something that's followed me down from childhood --
Followed me all these years and kept me,
Spite of my slips and sins and follies,
Spite of my last red sin, my murder, --
Just out of hell? Yes? something of that kind?
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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 A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: Aubain and the children, huddled at the end of the field, were trying
to jump over the ditch. Felicite continued to back before the bull,
blinding him with dirt, while she shouted to them to make haste.
Madame Aubain finally slid into the ditch, after shoving first
Virginia and then Paul into it, and though she stumbled several times
she managed, by dint of courage, to climb the other side of it.
The bull had driven Felicite up against a fence; the foam from his
muzzle flew in her face and in another minute he would have
disembowelled her. She had just time to slip between two bars and the
huge animal, thwarted, paused.
For years, this occurrence was a topic of conversation in Pont-
A Simple Soul |
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 A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: with the country as it could. They all referred themselves to his
direction, so they left their three houses standing, and the next day
went away towards Epping. The captain also (for so they now called
him), and his two fellow-travellers, laid aside their design of going to
Waltham, and all went together.
When they came near Epping they halted, choosing out a proper
place in the open forest, not very near the highway, but not far out of
it on the north side, under a little cluster of low pollard-trees. Here
they pitched their little camp - which consisted of three large tents or
huts made of poles which their carpenter, and such as were his
assistants, cut down and fixed in the ground in a circle, binding all the
A Journal of the Plague Year |
