| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: entertaining tales of barges and coasters; but the inspired
talent of Mr. Jacobs for poking endless fun at poor, innocent
sailors in a prose which, however extravagant in its felicitous
invention, is always artistically adjusted to observed truth, was
not yet. Perhaps Mr. Jacobs himself was not yet. I fancy that,
at most, if he had made his nurse laugh it was about all he had
achieved at that early date.
Therefore, I repeat, other disabilities apart, I could not have
been prepared for the sight of that husky old porpoise. The
object of his concise address was to call my attention to a rope
which he incontinently flung down for me to catch. I caught it,
A Personal Record |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: on his lips, was his friendship, in its acuteness and reality, laid up
across the bay among the sandhills.
He was anxious for the sake of this friendship and perhaps too in order to
clear himself in his own mind from the imputation of having dried and
shrunk--for Ramsay lived in a welter of children, whereas Bankes was
childless and a widower--he was anxious that Lily Briscoe should not
disparage Ramsay (a great man in his own way) yet should understand how
things stood between them. Begun long years ago, their friendship had
petered out on a Westmorland road, where the hen spread her wings before
her chicks; after which Ramsay had married, and their paths lying
different ways, there had been, certainly for no one's fault, some
To the Lighthouse |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy: me up, and let my body be burned with red-hot irons!"
Polikey returned to his home, and throwing himself on the oven
spent the entire day weeping and repeating the promise made to
his mistress.
From that time on he was not again caught stealing, but his life
became extremely sad, for he was regarded with suspicion by every
one and pointed to as a thief.
When the time came round for securing recruits for the army, all
the peasants singled out Polikey as the first to be taken. The
superintendent was especially anxious to get rid of him, and went
to his mistress to induce her to have him sent away. The
The Kreutzer Sonata |
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 The White Moll by Frank L. Packard: were no longer of any service, began to talk louder.
The third man was Shluker. She recognized his voice, too.
"It's no use!" he snarled. "If she's a good swimmer, she could get
across the river easy. She's got away; that's sure. What the hell's
the good of this? We're playing the fool. Beat it back! She was
nosing around the shed. How do we know she didn't let the Pug loose
before we saw her?"
Pinkie Bonn whined:
"If he's gone too, we're crimped! The whole works is bust up! The
Pug knows everything, where our money is, an' everything. They'll
have us cold!"
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