| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: and bliss results."
"I don't understand enigmas. I never could guess a riddle in my
life."
"If you wish me to speak more plainly, show me your palm."
"And I must cross it with silver, I suppose?"
"To be sure."
I gave her a shilling: she put it into an old stocking-foot which
she took out of her pocket, and having tied it round and returned
it, she told me to hold out my hand. I did. She ached her face to
the palm, and pored over it without touching it.
"It is too fine," said she. "I can make nothing of such a hand as
Jane Eyre |
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 An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: flung himself into the path, long since abandoned, which anchorites
once followed in order to reach heaven: he led an ascetic life without
proclaiming it, and without external credit. He hid from the world his
works of charity, his continual prayers, his penances; he thought that
all priests should have acted thus during the days of wrath and
terror, and he preached by example. While presenting to the world a
calm and smiling face, he had ended by detaching himself utterly from
earthly interests; his mind turned exclusively to sufferers, to the
needs of the Church, and to his own salvation. He left the management
of his property to his niece, who gave him the income of it, and to
whom he paid a slender board in order to spend the surplus in secret
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