| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: and look in it."
So the elder brother looked in the mirror, and he was sore amazed;
for he was an old man, and his hair was white upon his head; and he
sat down in the hall and wept aloud.
"Now," said the younger brother, "see what a fool's part you have
played, that ran over all the world to seek what was lying in our
father's treasury, and came back an old carle for the dogs to bark
at, and without chick or child. And I that was dutiful and wise
sit here crowned with virtues and pleasures, and happy in the light
of my hearth."
"Methinks you have a cruel tongue," said the elder brother; and he
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: who liked to lie awake a little reading Virgil, kept his candle burning
rather longer than the rest.
2
So with the lamps all put out, the moon sunk, and a thin rain drumming
on the roof a downpouring of immense darkness began. Nothing, it
seemed, could survive the flood, the profusion of darkness which,
creeping in at keyholes and crevices, stole round window blinds, came
into bedrooms, swallowed up here a jug and basin, there a bowl of red
and yellow dahlias, there the sharp edges and firm bulk of a chest of
drawers. Not only was furniture confounded; there was scarcely
anything left of body or mind by which one could say, "This is he" or
To the Lighthouse |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: the most o' ye only tell abaout. I calc'late her man is as good
a husban' as ye kin find this side of Aylesbury; an' ef ye knowed
as much abaout the hills as I dew, ye wouldn't ast no better church
weddin' nor her'n. Let me tell ye suthin - some day yew folks'll
hear a child o' Lavinny's a-callin' its father's name on the top
o' Sentinel Hill!'
The only person who saw Wilbur during the
first month of his life were old Zechariah Whateley, of the undecayed
Whateleys, and Earl Sawyer's common-law wife, Mamie Bishop. Mamie's
visit was frankly one of curiosity, and her subsequent tales did
justice to her observations; but Zechariah came to lead a pair
The Dunwich Horror |
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 To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: have seized it. Such were the extremes of emotion that Mr Ramsay excited
in his children's breasts by his mere presence; standing, as now, lean as
a knife, narrow as the blade of one, grinning sarcastically, not only with
the pleasure of disillusioning his son and casting ridicule upon his wife,
who was ten thousand times better in every way than he was
(James thought), but also with some secret conceit at his own accuracy of
judgement. What he said was true. It was always true. He was incapable
of untruth; never tampered with a fact; never altered a disagreeable word
to suit the pleasure or convenience of any mortal being, least of all of
his own children, who, sprung from his loins, should be aware from
childhood that life is difficult; facts uncompromising; and the passage to
To the Lighthouse |
