| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: Veronica? Here I am! I am your lover, burning for you. I mean
to have you! Don't frown me off now. Don't go back into
Victorian respectability and pretend you don't know and you can't
think and all the rest of it. One comes at last to the step from
dreams to reality. This is your moment. No one will ever love
you as I love you now. I have been dreaming of your body and you
night after night. I have been imaging--"
"Mr. Ramage, I came here-- I didn't suppose for one moment you
would dare--"
"Nonsense! That is your mistake! You are too intellectual. You
want to do everything with your mind. You are afraid of kisses.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: as many more black figures, which I conjectured to be children,
although the mist had almost unrecognisably exaggerated their
forms. These were all silently following each other round and
round in a circle, now taking hands, now breaking up with chains
and reverences. A dance of children appeals to very innocent and
lively thoughts; but, at nightfall on the marshes, the thing was
eerie and fantastic to behold. Even I, who am well enough read in
Herbert Spencer, felt a sort of silence fall for an instant on my
mind. The next, I was pricking Modestine forward, and guiding her
like an unruly ship through the open. In a path, she went doggedly
ahead of her own accord, as before a fair wind; but once on the
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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 To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: about Tolstoi, whereas, what Paul said was about the thing, simply, not
himself, nothing else. Like all stupid people, he had a kind of
modesty too, a consideration for what you were feeling, which, once in
a way at least, she found attractive. Now he was thinking, not about
himself, or about Tolstoi, but whether she was cold, whether she felt a
draught, whether she would like a pear.
No, she said, she did not want a pear. Indeed she had been keeping
guard over the dish of fruit (without realising it) jealously, hoping
that nobody would touch it. Her eyes had been going in and out among
the curves and shadows of the fruit, among the rich purples of the
lowland grapes, then over the horny ridge of the shell, putting a
To the Lighthouse |
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 Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: let our loving-kindness make bright this house of our habitation.
ANOTHER FOR EVENING
LORD, receive our supplications for this house, family, and
country. Protect the innocent, restrain the greedy and the
treacherous, lead us out of our tribulation into a quiet land.
Look down upon ourselves and upon our absent dear ones. Help us
and them; prolong our days in peace and honour. Give us health,
food, bright weather, and light hearts. In what we meditate of
evil, frustrate our will; in what of good, further our endeavours.
Cause injuries to be forgot and benefits to be remembered.
Let us lie down without fear and awake and arise with exultation.
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