| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: I know it begins with some other letter, and she hath the
prettiest sententious of it, of you and Rosemary, that it
would do you good to heare it
Rom. Commend me to thy Lady
Nur. I a thousand times. Peter?
Pet. Anon
Nur. Before and apace.
Exit Nurse and Peter.
Enter Iuliet.
Iul. The clocke strook nine, when I did send the Nurse,
In halfe an houre she promised to returne,
Romeo and Juliet |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Betty Zane by Zane Grey: little liking which she might have felt for him. Once again Miller had crossed
his path and worsted him. With a sudden sickening sense of despair he realized
that all his fond hopes had been but dreams, a fool's dreams. The dream of
that moment when he would give her his mother's jewels, the dream of that
charming face uplifted to his, the dream of the little cottage to which he
would hurry after his day's work and find her waiting at the gate,--these
dreams must be dispelled forever. He could barely wait until the end of the
service. He wanted to be alone; to fight it out with himself; to crush out of
his heart that fair image. At length the hour ended and he got out before the
congregation and hurried to his room.
Betty had company all that afternoon and it was late in the day when Col. Zane
Betty Zane |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: killed Piti [Retief] and the Boers; they say that he is quick and
cunning as a snake, and that Panda and his great indunas think more of
him than of any white man they know. He is unmarried also, though they
say, too, that twice he had a wife, who died, and now he does not turn
to look at women, which is strange in any man, and shows that he will
escape trouble and succeed. Still, it must be remembered that they are
all ugly down here in Zululand, cows, or heifers who will be cows.
Piff! no more."
She paused for a little while, then went on in her dreamy, reflective
voice:
"Now, if he met a woman who is not merely a cow or a heifer, a woman
Child of Storm |
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 Middlemarch by George Eliot: Lydgate found it more and more agreeable to be with her, and there
was no constraint now, there was a delightful interchange of influence
in their eyes, and what they said had that superfluity of meaning
for them, which is observable with some sense of flatness by a
third person; still they had no interviews or asides from which
a third person need have been excluded. In fact, they flirted;
and Lydgate was secure in the belief that they did nothing else.
If a man could not love and be wise, surely he could flirt
and be wise at the same time? Really, the men in Middlemarch,
except Mr. Farebrother, were great bores, and Lydgate did not care
about commercial politics or cards: what was he to do for relaxation?
Middlemarch |
