| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: fierce and loyal to the compact, yet passing on to her father,
unsuspected by James, a private token of the love she felt for him.
For she thought, dabbling her hand (and now Macalister's boy had caught
a mackerel, and it lay kicking on the floor, with blood on its gills)
for she thought, looking at James who kept his eyes dispassionately on
the sail, or glanced now and then for a second at the horizon, you're
not exposed to it, to this pressure and division of feeling, this
extraordinary temptation. Her father was feeling in his pockets; in
another second, he would have found his book. For no one attracted her
more; his hands were beautiful, and his feet, and his voice, and his
words, and his haste, and his temper, and his oddity, and his passion,
To the Lighthouse |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft: curious to know who is "The O'Connor Don." He is Dennis O'Connor,
Esq., but is of the oldest family in Ireland, and the representative
of the last kings of Connaught. He is called altogether the
O'Connor Don, and begins his note to me with that title. You
remember Campbell's poem of "O'Connor's Child"?
Sunday, 14th February
. . . Yesterday morning was my breakfast at Sir Robert Inglis's.
The hour was halfpast nine, and as his house is two miles off I had
to be up wondrous early for me. The weather has been very cold for
this climate for the last few days, though we should think it
moderate. They know nothing of extreme cold here. But, to return
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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 The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: said:--
"Take the letter at once to that address."
The woman made a movement to take the letter, but, either from haste
or inadvertence, the paper fell from her hand close to la Peyrade's
feet. He stooped hastily to pick it up, and read the direction
involuntarily. It bore the words, "His Excellency the Minister of
Foreign Affairs"; the significant words, "For him only," written
higher up, seemed to give this missive a character of intimacy.
"Pardon, monsieur," said the countess, receiving the paper, which he
had the good taste to return to her own hands in order to show his
eagerness to serve her. "Be so good, mademoiselle, as to carry that in
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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 Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain: cap and tassel on and a beautiful silk jacket and baggy
trousers with a shawl around his waist and pistols in it
that could talk English and wanted to hire to us as
guide and take us to Mecca and Medina and Central
Africa and everywheres for a half a dollar a day and his
keep, and we hired him and left, and piled on the
power, and by the time we was through dinner we was
over the place where the Israelites crossed the Red Sea
when Pharaoh tried to overtake them and was caught
by the waters. We stopped, then, and had a good
look at the place, and it done Jim good to see it. He
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