| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In the Cage by Henry James: was tolerably prompt; she engaged by the month, taking over the
whole thing; and there was an evening on which, in respect to our
heroine, she at last returned to the charge. "It's growing and
growing, and I see that I must really divide the work. One wants
an associate--of one's own kind, don't you know? You know the look
they want it all to have?--of having come, not from a florist, but
from one of themselves. Well, I'm sure YOU could give it--because
you ARE one. Then we SHOULD win. Therefore just come in with me."
"And leave the P.O.?"
"Let the P.O. simply bring you your letters. It would bring you
lots, you'd see: orders, after a bit, by the score." It was on
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: father; and to judge a father is moral parricide.
In the long run, however, Juana's indifference to her husband wore
itself away; it even changed to a species of fear. She understood at
last how the conduct of a father might long weigh on the future of her
children, and her motherly solicitude brought her many, though
incomplete, revelations of the truth. From day to day the dread of
some unknown but inevitable evil in the shadow of which she lived
became more and more keen and terrible. Therefore, during the rare
moments when Diard and Juana met she would cast upon his hollow face,
wan from nights of gambling and furrowed by emotions, a piercing look,
the penetration of which made Diard shudder. At such times the assumed
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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: story how Hume was stuck in a bog; he wanted to laugh. But first it
was nonsense to be anxious about Andrew. When he was Andrew's age he
used to walk about the country all day long, with nothing but a biscuit
in his pocket and nobody bothered about him, or thought that he had
fallen over a cliff. He said aloud he thought he would be off for a
day's walk if the weather held. He had had about enough of Bankes and
of Carmichael. He would like a little solitude. Yes, she said. It
annoyed him that she did not protest. She knew that he would never do
it. He was too old now to walk all day long with a biscuit in his
pocket. She worried about the boys, but not about him. Years ago,
before he had married, he thought, looking across the bay, as they
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 Menexenus by Plato: such was the fact we ourselves are witnesses, who are of the same race with
them, and have mutually received and granted forgiveness of what we have
done and suffered. After this there was perfect peace, and the city had
rest; and her feeling was that she forgave the barbarians, who had severely
suffered at her hands and severely retaliated, but that she was indignant
at the ingratitude of the Hellenes, when she remembered how they had
received good from her and returned evil, having made common cause with the
barbarians, depriving her of the ships which had once been their salvation,
and dismantling our walls, which had preserved their own from falling. She
thought that she would no longer defend the Hellenes, when enslaved either
by one another or by the barbarians, and did accordingly. This was our
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