| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Poems by Bronte Sisters: there. The whole makes but a tiny nosegay, and the colour and
perfume of the flowers are not such as fit them for festal uses.
It has been already said that my sisters wrote much in childhood
and girlhood. Usually, it seems a sort of injustice to expose in
print the crude thoughts of the unripe mind, the rude efforts of
the unpractised hand; yet I venture to give three little poems of
my sister Emily's, written in her sixteenth year, because they
illustrate a point in her character.
At that period she was sent to school. Her previous life, with
the exception of a single half-year, had been passed in the
absolute retirement of a village parsonage, amongst the hills
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pathology of Lying, Etc. by William and Mary Healy: menstrual disturbance. Our cases corroborate these facts, but
show also that extreme false accusations may be made by girls
BEFORE puberty. Satisfactory knowledge of such cases is not
gained by learning merely that the accuser is under temporary
physical stress--it is to be noted that our material clearly
shows that there is always more in the background.
The many cases observed by us of false accusations made, rarely,
by the feebleminded and, more often, by those suffering from a
psychosis, need not be mentioned here--they are obvious in their
abnormality and have little bearing upon our immediate problem.
For the sake of illustration of the fact of pathological
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: fuller, lovelier than any Individualism has ever been. Pain is not
the ultimate mode of perfection. It is merely provisional and a
protest. It has reference to wrong, unhealthy, unjust
surroundings. When the wrong, and the disease, and the injustice
are removed, it will have no further place. It will have done its
work. It was a great work, but it is almost over. Its sphere
lessens every day.
Nor will man miss it. For what man has sought for is, indeed,
neither pain nor pleasure, but simply Life. Man has sought to live
intensely, fully, perfectly. When he can do so without exercising
restraint on others, or suffering it ever, and his activities are
|
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 Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne: 'No offence, I trust,' said the lawyer, turning round as he
opened the door; 'only doing my duty as shemishery of
Providence.'
Groping his way to the front-door, he opened it with some
difficulty, and descended the steps to the hansom. The tired
driver looked up as he approached, and asked where he was to go
next.
Michael observed that Morris had followed him to the steps; a
brilliant inspiration came to him. 'Anything t' give pain,' he
reflected. . . . 'Drive Shcotlan' Yard,' he added aloud, holding
to the wheel to steady himself; 'there's something devilish
|
