| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: seemed every probability of her being permanently fixed there;
of her being taught only what very limited means could command,
and growing up with no advantages of connexion or improvement,
to be engrafted on what nature had given her in a pleasing person,
good understanding, and warm-hearted, well-meaning relations.
But the compassionate feelings of a friend of her father gave
a change to her destiny. This was Colonel Campbell, who had
very highly regarded Fairfax, as an excellent officer and most
deserving young man; and farther, had been indebted to him for
such attentions, during a severe camp-fever, as he believed had saved
his life. These were claims which he did not learn to overlook,
Emma |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: notice of the world he has served, as a lover covets the notice of
his mistress. Of course he thinks somewhere, somewhen, he will get
credit. Only last year I heard some men talking of him, and they
were noting, with little mean smiles, how he had shown himself self-
conscious while there was talk of some honorary degree-giving or
other; it would, I have no doubt, please him greatly if his work
were to flower into a crimson gown in some Academic parterre. Why
shouldn't it? But that is incidental vanity at the worst; he goes
on anyhow. Most men don't.
But we had our walk twenty years and more ago now. He was oldish
even then as a young man, just as he is oldish still in middle age.
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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 Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: To know our Fathers pleasure in this case:
To old Free-towne, our common iudgement place:
Once more on paine of death, all men depart.
Exeunt.
Moun. Who set this auncient quarrell new abroach?
Speake Nephew, were you by, when it began:
Ben. Heere were the seruants of your aduersarie,
And yours close fighting ere I did approach,
I drew to part them, in the instant came
The fiery Tibalt, with his sword prepar'd,
Which as he breath'd defiance to my eares,
Romeo and Juliet |
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 Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: "Will you have my horse, to ride after your prize?" said the Colonel.
The Baron took the banter poured upon him by Madame de Vaudremont and
Montcornet with a good grace, which secured their silence as to the
events of the evening, when his friend exchanged his charger for a
rich and pretty young wife.
As the Comtesse de Soulanges drove across Paris from the Chausee
d'Antin to the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where she lived, her soul was
prey to many alarms. Before leaving the Hotel Gondreville she went
through all the rooms, but found neither her aunt nor her husband, who
had gone away without her. Frightful suspicions then tortured her
ingenuous mind. A silent witness of her husbands' torments since the
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