| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: bemoaned her fate most movingly.
Joe tried to comfort her with the assurance that directly he had
housed her in the Maypole, he would return to the spot with a
lantern (for it was now quite dark) and make strict search for the
missing articles, which there was great probability of his finding,
as it was not likely that anybody had passed that way since, and
she was not conscious that they had been forcibly taken from her.
Dolly thanked him very heartily for this offer, though with no
great hope of his quest being successful; and so with many
lamentations on her side, and many hopeful words on his, and much
weakness on the part of Dolly and much tender supporting on the
Barnaby Rudge |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: unfortunately, an opportunity of perfect trial undeceived me at
once, and for ever. The Trustees of the National Gallery
commissioned me to arrange the Turner drawings there, and permitted
me to prepare three hundred examples of his studies from nature, for
exhibition at Kensington. At Kensington they were, and are, placed
for exhibition; but they are not exhibited, for the room in which
they hang is always empty.
Well--this showed me at once, that those ten years of my life had
been, in their chief purpose, lost. For that, I did not so much
care; I had, at least, learned my own business thoroughly, and
should be able, as I fondly supposed, after such a lesson, now to
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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 La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: He, poor child, was still too young to know what death meant.
Annette and the vinedresser's wife closed the eyes of the adorable
woman, whose beauty shone out in all its radiance after death. Then
the women took possession of the chamber of death, removed the
furniture, wrapped the dead in her winding-sheet, and laid her upon
the couch. They lit tapers about her, and arranged everything--the
crucifix, the sprigs of box, and the holy-water stoup--after the
custom of the countryside, bolting the shutters and drawing the
curtains. Later the curate came to pass the night in prayer with
Louis, who refused to leave his mother. On Tuesday morning an old
woman and two children and a vinedresser's wife followed the dead to
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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 Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: Now, whether the idea of poor Yorick's skull was put out of the
Count's mind by the reality of my own, or by what magic he could
drop a period of seven or eight hundred years, makes nothing in
this account; - 'tis certain the French conceive better than they
combine; - I wonder at nothing in this world, and the less at this;
inasmuch as one of the first of our own Church, for whose candour
and paternal sentiments I have the highest veneration, fell into
the same mistake in the very same case: - "He could not bear," he
said, "to look into the sermons wrote by the King of Denmark's
jester." Good, my Lord said I; but there are two Yoricks. The
Yorick your Lordship thinks of, has been dead and buried eight
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