| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: beginning of a chapter. Chapters often begin quite differently from
the way they go on, you know." Katharine read what her mother had
written. She might have been a schoolmaster criticizing a child's
essay. Her face gave Mrs. Hilbery, who watched it anxiously, no ground
for hope.
"It's very beautiful," she stated, "but, you see, mother, we ought to
go from point to point--"
"Oh, I know," Mrs. Hilbery exclaimed. "And that's just what I can't
do. Things keep coming into my head. It isn't that I don't know
everything and feel everything (who did know him, if I didn't?), but I
can't put it down, you see. There's a kind of blind spot," she said,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: Then she calmly devours the deceased by small mouthfuls.
Now what do the youngsters do, while their mother is being eaten?
Easily consoled, heedless of the atrocious scene, they climb on the
conqueror's back and quietly take their places among the lawful
family. The ogress raises no objection, accepts them as her own.
She makes a meal off the mother and adopts the orphans.
Let us add that, for many months yet, until the final emancipation
comes, she will carry them without drawing any distinction between
them and her own young. Henceforth, the two families, united in so
tragic a fashion, will form but one. We see how greatly out of
place it would be to speak, in this connection, of mother-love and
The Life of the Spider |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: colours having been flying all day in compliment to the
commencement of the work, the other vessels in the harbour
also saluted, which made a very gay appearance. A number of
the friends and acquaintances of those on board having been
thus collected, the piers, though at a late hour, were
perfectly crowded, and just as the SMEATON cleared the
harbour, all on board united in giving three hearty cheers,
which were returned by those on shore in such good earnest,
that, in the still of the evening, the sound must have been
heard in all parts of the town, re-echoing from the walls and
lofty turrets of the venerable Abbey of Aberbrothwick. The
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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 Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: 'Where will you go in the night? You'd better stay!'
'I'd be glad to, but I must go on. It's business, and it can't
be helped.'
'Well, warm yourself at least. The samovar is just ready.'
'Warm myself? Yes, I'll do that,' said Vasili Andreevich. 'It
won't get darker. The moon will rise and it will be lighter.
Let's go in and warm ourselves, Nikita.'
'Well, why not? Let us warm ourselves,' replied Nikita, who
was stiff with cold and anxious to warm his frozen limbs.
Vasili Andreevich went into the room with the old man, and
Nikita drove through the gate opened for him by Petrushka, by
Master and Man |
