| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: shock had started it vibrating, and the string had snapped. He had
waited for two years in a perfectly intoxicated confidence for a
day that now would never come to a man disarmed for life by the
loss of the brig, and, it seemed to him, made unfit for love to
which he had no foothold to offer.
Day after day he would traverse the length of the town, follow the
coast, and, reaching the point of land opposite that part of the
reef on which his brig lay stranded, look steadily across the water
at her beloved form, once the home of an exulting hope, and now, in
her inclined, desolated immobility, towering above the lonely sea-
horizon, a symbol of despair.
'Twixt Land & Sea |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: the devil."
"Parisian creative powers have gone farther than that," said Gazonal;
"look at the workmen! You don't know all the products of industry,
though you exhibit them. Our toilers fight against the toilers of the
continent by force of misery, as Napoleon fought Europe by force of
regiments."
"Here we are, at my friend the usurer's," said Bixiou. "His name is
Vauvinet. One of the greatest mistakes made by writers who describe
our manners and morals is to harp on old portraits. In these days all
trades change. The grocer becomes a peer of France, artists capitalize
their money, vaudevillists have incomes. A few rare beings may remain
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: have talked of the masses in the old feudal times; for then each
individual was someone's man, bound to his master by ties of mutual
service, just or unjust, honourable or base, but still giving him a
personality of duties and rights, and dividing him from his class.
Dividing, I say. The poor of the Middle Age had little sense of a
common humanity. Those who owned allegiance to the lord in the next
valley were not their brothers; and at their own lord's bidding,
they buckled on sword and slew the next lord's men, with joyful
heart and good conscience. Only now and then misery compressed them
into masses; and they ran together, as sheep run together to face a
dog. Some wholesale wrong made them aware that they were brothers,
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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 Persuasion by Jane Austen: but generally speaking, it is its weakness and not its strength
that appears in a sick chamber: it is selfishness and impatience
rather than generosity and fortitude, that one hears of.
There is so little real friendship in the world! and unfortunately"
(speaking low and tremulously) "there are so many who forget
to think seriously till it is almost too late."
Anne saw the misery of such feelings. The husband had not been
what he ought, and the wife had been led among that part of mankind
which made her think worse of the world than she hoped it deserved.
It was but a passing emotion however with Mrs Smith; she shook it off,
and soon added in a different tone--
Persuasion |
