| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: remember to have crossed vast deserts of snow without other
perspective than a snow horizon, without other drink than snow,
without other bed than snow, without other food than snow or a few
frozen beet-roots, a few handfuls of flour, or a little horseflesh.
Dying of hunger, thirst, fatigue, and want of sleep, these
unfortunates reached a shore where they saw before them wood,
provisions, innumerable camp equipages, and carriages,--in short a
whole town at their service. The village of Studzianka had been wholly
taken to pieces and conveyed from the heights on which it stood to the
plain. However forlorn and dangerous that refuge might be, its
miseries and its perils only courted men who had lately seen nothing
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: stealing like a thief into a third.
[6] See "Hell." VI. i. 15; "Pol. Lac." v. 7; "Cyrop." I. v. 12.
[7] Or, "the strongholds of the enemy might to all intents and
purposes have been open places."
When he was on the march, and was well aware that an enemy might, if
he chose, deliver battle, his habit was to lead his troops in compact
battle order ready to confront emergencies, with soft, slow step,
advancing, as it were, with maidenly demureness,[8] for in such
procedure, as he believed, lay the secret of true calm, engendering a
dauntless self-assurance, imperturbable, unerring, impervious to
treacherous assault. Therefore by such behaviour he was a terror 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 The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: What does the Bible say? `Driven off the face of the earth.'
Very well, I am off the face of the earth now. As I came
at night so I shall go."
"Impossible!" I murmured. "You can't."
"Can't? . . . Not naked like a soul on the Day of Judgment.
I shall freeze on to this sleeping suit. The Last Day is not yet--
and . . . you have understood thoroughly. Didn't you?"
I felt suddenly ashamed of myself. I may say truly that I understood--
and my hesitation in letting that man swim away from my ship's side
had been a mere sham sentiment, a sort of cowardice.
"It can't be done now till next night," I breathed out.
The Secret Sharer |
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 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: his. I will leave better men to those who only consider their own
advantage. If he has done amiss, I shall consider my life well
spent in saving him from the consequences of his early errors, and
striving to recall him to the path of virtue. God grant me
success!'
Here the conversation ended, for at this juncture my uncle's voice
was heard from his chamber, loudly calling upon my aunt to come to
bed. He was in a bad humour that night; for his gout was worse.
It had been gradually increasing upon him ever since we came to
town; and my aunt took advantage of the circumstance next morning
to persuade him to return to the country immediately, without
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
