| 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: "Varry like: but give ower studying; ye've done enough for to-
night."
"I think we have: at least I'm tired. Mary, are you?"
"Mortally: after all, it's tough work fagging away at a language
with no master but a lexicon."
"It is, especially such a language as this crabbed but glorious
Deutsch. I wonder when St. John will come home."
"Surely he will not be long now: it is just ten (looking at a
little gold watch she drew from her girdle). It rains fast, Hannah:
will you have the goodness to look at the fire in the parlour?"
The woman rose: she opened a door, through which I dimly saw a
Jane Eyre |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from To-morrow by Joseph Conrad: ble tops in the dimness of the drawn blinds. Cap-
tain Hagberd always described his purchases to
her, carefully, as to a person having a legitimate
interest in them. The overgrown yard of his cot-
tage could be laid over with concrete . . . after
to-morrow.
"We may just as well do away with the fence.
You could have your drying-line out, quite clear of
your flowers." He winked, and she would blush
faintly.
This madness that had entered her life through
To-morrow |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: they are full of perplexity and travail which is even worse than that of
the women. So much for them. And there are others, Theaetetus, who come
to me apparently having nothing in them; and as I know that they have no
need of my art, I coax them into marrying some one, and by the grace of God
I can generally tell who is likely to do them good. Many of them I have
given away to Prodicus, and many to other inspired sages. I tell you this
long story, friend Theaetetus, because I suspect, as indeed you seem to
think yourself, that you are in labour--great with some conception. Come
then to me, who am a midwife's son and myself a midwife, and do your best
to answer the questions which I will ask you. And if I abstract and expose
your first-born, because I discover upon inspection that the conception
|
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 Common Sense by Thomas Paine: Whoever says No to this question, is an INDEPENDANT, for independancy
means no more, than, whether we shall make our own laws,
or whether the king, the greatest enemy this continent hath,
or can have, shall tell us "THERE SHALL BE NO LAWS BUT SUCH AS I LIKE."
But the king you will say has a negative in England; the people there
can make no laws without his consent. In point of right and good order,
there is something very ridiculous, that a youth of twenty-one
(which hath often happened) shall say to several millions of people,
older and wiser than himself, I forbid this or that act of yours to be law.
But in this place I decline this sort of reply, though I will never cease
to expose the absurdity of it, and only answer, that England being the King's
Common Sense |
