| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: kitchen, where nothing went to waste. When Nanon had washed her
dishes, locked up the remains of the dinner, and put out her fire, she
left the kitchen, which was separated by a passage from the living-
room, and went to spin hemp beside her masters. One tallow candle
sufficed the family for the evening. The servant slept at the end of
the passage in a species of closet lighted only by a fan-light. Her
robust health enabled her to live in this hole with impunity; there
she could hear the slightest noise through the deep silence which
reigned night and day in that dreary house. Like a watch-dog, she
slept with one ear open, and took her rest with a mind alert.
A description of the other parts of the dwelling will be found
Eugenie Grandet |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: it, and one day, if I outlive this time of sorrow, may become my
guests though I live so far away from all of you. I am Ulysses
son of Laertes, renowned among mankind for all manner of
subtlety, so that my fame ascends to heaven. I live in Ithaca,
where there is a high mountain called Neritum, covered with
forests; and not far from it there is a group of islands very
near to one another--Dulichium, Same, and the wooded island of
Zacynthus. It lies squat on the horizon, all highest up in the
sea towards the sunset, while the others lie away from it
towards dawn. {75} It is a rugged island, but it breeds brave
men, and my eyes know none that they better love to look upon.
The Odyssey |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: have gone supperless to roost.
THE LAST DAY
WHEN I awoke (Thursday, 2nd October), and, hearing a great
flourishing of cocks and chuckling of contented hens, betook me to
the window of the clean and comfortable room where I had slept the
night, I looked forth on a sunshiny morning in a deep vale of
chestnut gardens. It was still early, and the cockcrows, and the
slanting lights, and the long shadows encouraged me to be out and
look round me.
St. Germain de Calberte is a great parish nine leagues round about.
At the period of the wars, and immediately before the devastation,
|
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: Mr Ramsay (he scarcely dared look at him) might rouse himself, shut his
book, and say something sharp; but for the moment he was reading, so
that James stealthily, as if he were stealing downstairs on bare feet,
afraid of waking a watchdog by a creaking board, went on thinking what
was she like, where did she go that day? He began following her from
room to room and at last they came to a room where in a blue light, as
if the reflection came from many china dishes, she talked to somebody;
he listened to her talking. She talked to a servant, saying simply
whatever came into her head. She alone spoke the truth; to her alone
could he speak it. That was the source of her everlasting attraction
for him, perhaps; she was a person to whom one could say what came into
To the Lighthouse |
