| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Kenilworth by Walter Scott: departure."
"Do not trust your daughter too far with your guests, my good
landlord," said Tressilian.
"Oh, sir, we will keep measure; but I wonder not that you are
jealous of them all.--May I crave to know with what aspect the
fair lady at the Place yesterday received you?"
"I own," said Tressilian, "it was angry as well as confused, and
affords me little hope that she is yet awakened from her unhappy
delusion."
"In that case, sir, I see not why you should play the champion of
a wench that will none of you, and incur the resentment of a
Kenilworth |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: which lay dim and dreamlike in the August haze, as Joanna must have
watched it many a day. There was the world, and here was she with
eternity well begun. In the life of each of us, I said to myself,
there is a place remote and islanded, and given to endless regret
or secret happiness; we are each the uncompanioned hermit and
recluse of an hour or a day; we understand our fellows of the cell
to whatever age of history they may belong.
But as I stood alone on the island, in the sea-breeze,
suddenly there came a sound of distant voices; gay voices and
laughter from a pleasure-boat that was going seaward full of boys
and girls. I knew, as if she had told me, that poor Joanna must
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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 Emma by Jane Austen: think he will come, I shall think so too; for you know Enscombe."
"Yes--I have some right to that knowledge; though I have never been
at the place in my life.--She is an odd woman!--But I never allow
myself to speak ill of her, on Frank's account; for I do believe
her to be very fond of him. I used to think she was not capable
of being fond of any body, except herself: but she has always been
kind to him (in her way--allowing for little whims and caprices,
and expecting every thing to be as she likes). And it is no small credit,
in my opinion, to him, that he should excite such an affection;
for, though I would not say it to any body else, she has no more
heart than a stone to people in general; and the devil of a temper."
Emma |
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 Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: system. In our own eyes we are the star about which, as in Joseph's
dream, our relatives revolve and upon which they help to shed an
added lustre. Our Ptolemaic theory of society is necessitated by our
tenacity to the personal standpoint. This fixed idea of ours causes
all else seemingly to rotate about it. Such an egoistic conception
is quite foreign to our longitudinal antipodes. However much
appearances may agree, the fundamental principles upon which family
consideration is based are widely different in the two hemispheres.
For the far-eastern social universe turns on a patricentric pivot.
Upon the conception of the family as the social and political unit
depends the whole constitution of China. The same theory somewhat
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