| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: human nature is, after all, that which is nearest to everyone and
most interesting to everyone, therefore they go to fiction, since
they cannot go to fact, to see what they themselves might be had
they the chance; to see what fantastic tricks before high heaven
men and women like themselves can play, and how they play them.
Well, it is not for me to judge, for me to blame. I will only say
that there are those who cannot read sensational novels, or,
indeed, any novels at all, just because they see so many
sensational novels being enacted round them in painful facts of
sinful flesh and blood. There are those, too, who have looked in
the mirror too often to wish to see their own disfigured visage in
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: both wrong. You are too deeply serious; I, perhaps, too little
so. The dispute I had with Major Falconer was of no earthly
consequence. Had anything occurred betwixt us that ought to have
been settled PAR VOIE DU FAIT, as we say in France, neither of us
are persons that are likely to postpone such a meeting. Permit
me to say, that were it generally known that you or my Lady
Forester are apprehensive of such a catastrophe, it might be the
very means of bringing about what would not otherwise be likely
to happen. I know your good sense, Lady Bothwell, and that you
will understand me when I say that really my affairs require my
absence for some months. This Jemima cannot understand. It is a
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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 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: of the village, and, on returning to his room to read,
found himself quite unable to concentrate his mind on the page.
On Friday, as soon as he had got himself up as he thought
Sue would like to see him, and made a hasty tea, he set out,
notwithstanding that the evening was wet. The trees overhead
deepened the gloom of the hour, and they dripped sadly upon him,
impressing him with forebodings--illogical forebodings;
for though he knew that he loved her he also knew that he could
not be more to her than he was.
On turning the corner and entering the village the first sight
that greeted his eyes was that of two figures under one umbrella
Jude the Obscure |
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 Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: with the help of such connections as her wit and beauty would obtain
for her in Paris. Nais was enchanted by the prospect of such liberty.
M. de Bargeton was of the opinion that he was making a brilliant
marriage, for he expected that in no long while M. de Negrepelisse
would leave him the estates which he was rounding out so lovingly; but
to an unprejudiced spectator it certainly seemed as though the duty of
writing the bridegroom's epitaph might devolve upon his father-in-law.
By this time Mme. de Bargeton was thirty-six years old and her husband
fifty-eight. The disparity in age was the more startling since M. de
Bargeton looked like a man of seventy, whereas his wife looked
scarcely half her age. She could still wear rose-color, and her hair
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