| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: little flower-pots standing out in the sun, regiments of forks and
hoes, and a host of innocent things, a combination of pleasant results
to justify the gardener's charming hobby.
At the end of the greenhouse the judge had set up a grandstand, an
amphitheatre of benches to hold some five or six thousand pelargoniums
in pots--a splendid and famous show. People came to see his geraniums
in flower, not only from the neighborhood, but even from the
departments round about. The Empress Marie Louise, passing through the
town, had honored the curiously kept greenhouse with a visit; so much
was she impressed with the sight, that she spoke of it to Napoleon,
and the old judge received the Cross of the Legion of Honor. But as
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: nearly killed; and yet, at the second glance, recognised him
for no old man at all, but one in the full strength of his
years, and of a strong, speaking, and intellectual
countenance stigmatised by weariness and famine. He beckoned
my father near the cliff, and there, in the most private
whisper, begged for brandy. My father looked at him with
scorn: 'You remind me,' he said, 'of a neglected duty. Here
is my flask; it contains enough, I trust, to revive the women
of your party; and I will begin with her whom I saw you
robbing of her blankets.' And with that, not heeding his
appeals, my father turned his back upon the egoist.
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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 Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare: Each envious briar his weary legs doth scratch,
Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay:
For misery is trodden on by many,
And being low never reliev'd by any. 708
'Lie quietly, and hear a little more;
Nay, do not struggle, for thou shalt not rise:
To make thee hate the hunting of the boar,
Unlike myself thou hear'st me moralize, 712
Applying this to that, and so to so;
For love can comment upon every woe.
'Where did I leave?' 'No matter where,' quoth he
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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 Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: long as they, their superiors, condescended to talk to them, and to
give them shillings and half-crowns, or articles of clothing, they
had a right to amuse themselves, even at their expense; and the
people must adore them as angels of light, condescending to
minister to their necessities, and enlighten their humble
dwellings.
I made many and various attempts to deliver my pupils from these
delusive notions without alarming their pride - which was easily
offended, and not soon appeased - but with little apparent result;
and I know not which was the more reprehensible of the two:
Matilda was more rude and boisterous; but from Rosalie's womanly
Agnes Grey |
