| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Chinese Boy and Girl by Isaac Taylor Headland: but that isn't bad."
When a child is born it is considered one year old, and its years
are reckoned not from its birthdays but from its New Year's days.
If it has the good fortune to be born the day before two days old
it is reckoned two years old being one year old when born and two
years old on its first New Year's day.
The first great event in a child's life occurs when it is
one month old. It is then given its first public reception.
Its head is shaved amid kicking and screaming, its mother is up
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith: HASTINGS. To me she appears sensible and silent.
TONY. Ay, before company. But when she's with her playmate, she's as
loud as a hog in a gate.
HASTINGS. But there is a meek modesty about her that charms me.
TONY. Yes, but curb her never so little, she kicks up, and you're
flung in a ditch.
HASTINGS. Well, but you must allow her a little beauty.--Yes, you must
allow her some beauty.
TONY. Bandbox! She's all a made-up thing, mun. Ah! could you but see
Bet Bouncer of these parts, you might then talk of beauty. Ecod, she
has two eyes as black as sloes, and cheeks as broad and red as a pulpit
She Stoops to Conquer |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: was 'Would God it were evening!' It was no day of rest, but a day of
texts, of catechisms (Watts'), of tracts about converted swearers,
godly charwomen, and edifying deaths of sinners saved.
"Up with the lark, hymns and portions of Scripture had to be learned by
heart till 8 o'clock, when there were family-prayers, then breakfast,
which I was never able to enjoy, partly from the fast already undergone,
and partly from the outlook I dreaded.
"At 9 came Sunday-School; and it made me indignant to be put into the
class with the village-children, as well as alarmed lest, by some
mistake of mine, I should be put below them.
"The Church-Service was a veritable Wilderness of Zin. I wandered in
Sylvie and Bruno |
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 Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: "Ah! He is the Master," said the old woman, "but I think it will be
His good pleasure to take us to Himself. Just look at that light down
there . . ." and she nodded her head as she spoke towards the sunset.
Streaks of fiery red glared from behind the masses of crimson-flushed
brown cloud that seemed about to unloose a furious gale. There was a
smothered murmur of the sea, a moaning sound that seemed to come from
the depths, a low warning growl, such as a dog gives when he only
means mischief as yet. After all, Ostend was not far away. Perhaps
painting, like poetry, could not prolong the existence of the picture
presented by sea and sky at that moment beyond the time of its actual
duration. Art demands vehement contrasts, wherefore artists usually
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