| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: of either to promote his own views.
"After a prefatory conversation,--my blood (I thought it had
been cooler) flushed over my whole countenance as he spoke--he
alluded to my situation. He desired me to reflect--'and act like
a prudent woman, as the best proof of my superior understanding;
for he must own I had sense, did I know how to use it. I was not,'
he laid a stress on his words, 'without my passions; and a husband
was a convenient cloke.--He was liberal in his way of thinking;
and why might not we, like many other married people, who were
above vulgar prejudices, tacitly consent to let each other follow
their own inclination?--He meant nothing more, in the letter I made
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: to last a radiant month of heat and beauty; but a garden
where you meet the people you saw at breakfast, and will see
again at lunch and dinner, is not a place to be happy in.
Besides, they had a knack of finding out my favourite <49>
seats and lounging in them just when I longed to lounge myself;
and they took books out of the library with them, and left them face
downwards on the seats all night to get well drenched with dew,
though they might have known that what is meat for roses is
poison for books; and they gave me to understand that if they
had had the arranging of the garden it would have been finished
long ago--whereas I don't believe a garden ever is finished.
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
