| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anthem by Ayn Rand: still as a stone, and they looked straight
upon us, straight into our eyes. There was
no smile on their face, and no welcome.
But their face was taut, and their eyes
were dark. Then they turned as swiftly,
and they walked away from us.
But the following day, when we came to
the road, they smiled. They smiled to us
and for us. And we smiled in answer.
Their head fell back, and their arms fell,
as if their arms and their thin white neck
Anthem |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: with a single big screw forward, and there was a rudder aft. The
engine was the first one to be, so to speak, right in the plane
of the gas-bag. I lay immediately under the balloon on a sort
of glider framework, far away from either engine or rudder,
controlling them by wire-pulls constructed on the principle of
the well-known Bowden brake of the cyclist.
But Lord Roberts A has been pretty exhaustively figured and
described in various aeronautical publications. The unforeseen
defect was the badness of the work in the silk netting. It tore
aft as soon as I began to contract the balloon, and the last two
segments immediately bulged through the hole, exactly as an
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: that their steps resounded like the blows of a blacksmith on his
anvil. The generous aide-de-camp was killed. The athletic grenadier
was safe and sound. Philippe in defending Hippolyte had received a
bayonet in his shoulder; but he clung to his horse's mane, and clasped
him so tightly with his knees that the animal was held as in a vice.
"God be praised!" cried the major, finding his orderly untouched, and
the carriage in its place.
"If you are just, my officer, you will get me the cross for this,"
said the man. "We've played a fine game of guns and sabres here, I can
tell you."
"We have done nothing yet-- Harness the horses. Take these ropes."
|
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: was robbed of meaning, was like the voice of witlessness, humour,
persistency itself, trodden down but springing up again, so that as she
lurched, dusting, wiping, she seemed to say how it was one long sorrow
and trouble, how it was getting up and going to bed again, and bringing
things out and putting them away again. It was not easy or snug this
world she had known for close on seventy years. Bowed down she was
with weariness. How long, she asked, creaking and groaning on her
knees under the bed, dusting the boards, how long shall it endure? but
hobbled to her feet again, pulled herself up, and again with her
sidelong leer which slipped and turned aside even from her own face,
and her own sorrows, stood and gaped in the glass, aimlessly smiling,
To the Lighthouse |
