| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: there and I had to fret for a time and talk to her father, who
was just back from his office, he explained, and enjoying himself
in his own way in the greenhouse.
"I'm going to ask your daughter to marry me!" I said. "I think
we've been waiting long enough."
"I don't approve of long engagements either," said her father.
"But Marion will have her own way about it, anyhow. Seen this
new powdered fertiliser?"
I went in to talk to Mrs. Ramboat. "She'll want time to get her
things," said Mrs. Ramboat....
I and Marion sat down together on a little seat under some trees
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: an excellent remedy for sore eyes.
The burning wind spoken of in the sacred writings, I take to be that
which the natives term arur, and the Arabs uri, which blowing in the
spring, brings with it so excessive a heat, that the whole country
seems a burning oven; so that there is no travelling here in this
dreadful season, nor is this the only danger to which the unhappy
passenger is exposed in these uncomfortable regions. There blows in
the months of June, July, and August, another wind, which raises
mountains of sand and carries them through the air; all that can be
done in this case is when a cloud of sand rises, to mark where it is
likely to fall, and to retire as far off as possible; but it is very
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: a flock of wild-fowl feeding near a river-geese, it may be, or
cranes, or long-necked swans--even so did Hector make straight
for a dark-prowed ship, rushing right towards it; for Jove with
his mighty hand impelled him forward, and roused his people to
follow him.
And now the battle again raged furiously at the ships. You would
have thought the men were coming on fresh and unwearied, so
fiercely did they fight; and this was the mind in which they
were--the Achaeans did not believe they should escape destruction
but thought themselves doomed, while there was not a Trojan but
his heart beat high with the hope of firing the ships and putting
The Iliad |
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 La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: which one can never have enough.
She was always dressed in time to hear their lessons, which lasted
from ten till three, with an interval at noon for lunch, the three
taking the meal together in the summer-house. After lunch the children
played for an hour, while she--poor woman and happy mother--lay on a
long sofa in the summer-house, so placed that she could look out over
the soft, ever-changing country of Touraine, a land that you learn to
see afresh in all the thousand chance effects produced by daylight and
sky and the time of year.
The children scampered through the orchard, scrambled about the
terraces, chased the lizards, scarcely less nimble than they;
|
