| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: wishes us to stay in the town."
"Very well--arrange that yourself. I'll go some way with
you."
"No, no. Don't run any risk!" said his wife anxiously. "I
can find my way back--it is not late. Please let me go
alone."
"Right," said Henchard. "But just one word. Do you forgive
me, Susan?"
She murmured something; but seemed to find it difficult to
frame her answer.
"Never mind--all in good time," said he. "Judge me by my
The Mayor of Casterbridge |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from In Darkest England and The Way Out by General William Booth: eternity. The Church of the living God ought not--and to say nothing
about religion, the people who have any humanity ought not, to rest
without doing something desperate to rescue this half of a million who
are in the eddying maelstrom. We purpose, therefore, the taking away
of the people from the temptation which they cannot resist. We would
to God that the temptation could be taken away from them, that every
house licensed to send forth the black streams of bitter death were
closed, and closed for ever. But this will not be, we fear, for the
present at least.
While in one case drunkenness may be resolved into a habit, in another
it must be accounted a disease. What is wanted in the one case,
In Darkest England and The Way Out |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How, then
were they dissociated?
I was so far in my reflections when, as I have said, a side
light began to shine upon the subject from the laboratory table.
I began to perceive more deeply than it has ever yet been stated,
the trembling immateriality, the mistlike transience, of this
seemingly so solid body in which we walk attired. Certain agents
I found to have the power to shake and pluck back that fleshly
vestment, even as a wind might toss the curtains of a pavilion.
For two good reasons, I will not enter deeply into this scientific
branch of my confession. First, because I have been made to learn
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
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 Critias by Plato: themselves temples and instituted sacrifices. And Poseidon, receiving for
his lot the island of Atlantis, begat children by a mortal woman, and
settled them in a part of the island, which I will describe. Looking
towards the sea, but in the centre of the whole island, there was a plain
which is said to have been the fairest of all plains and very fertile.
Near the plain again, and also in the centre of the island at a distance of
about fifty stadia, there was a mountain not very high on any side. In
this mountain there dwelt one of the earth-born primeval men of that
country, whose name was Evenor, and he had a wife named Leucippe, and they
had an only daughter who was called Cleito. The maiden had already reached
womanhood, when her father and mother died; Poseidon fell in love with her
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