| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Under the Andes by Rex Stout: painfully, and I slackened my pace a little, but he urged me
forward with an oath, and himself sprang to the front. His knee
must have been causing him the keenest agony; his face was white as
death.
Then I uttered a cry of joy as I saw a bend in the passage
ahead. We reached it, and wheeled to the right. There was solid
wall on either side; the series of doors was ended.
"We'll shake 'em off now," I panted.
Harry nodded.
A short distance ahead we came to another cross-passage, and
turned to the left. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that our
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: as all men think and feel in nearly the same manner, each of them
may judge in a moment of the sensations of all the others; he
casts a rapid glance upon himself, and that is enough. There is
no wretchedness into which he cannot readily enter, and a secret
instinct reveals to him its extent. It signifies not that
strangers or foes be the sufferers; imagination puts him in their
place; something like a personal feeling is mingled with his
pity, and makes himself suffer whilst the body of his
fellow-creature is in torture. In democratic ages men rarely
sacrifice themselves for one another; but they display general
compassion for the members of the human race. They inflict no
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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 The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: "She lives--she will recover!" said another voice, as my head sunk
on Faber's shoulder. "For some hours in the night her sleep was
disturbed, convulsed. I feared, then, the worst. Suddenly, just
before the dawn, she called out aloud, still in sleep:
"'The cold and dark shadow has passed away from me and from Allen--
passed away from us both forever!'
"And from that moment the fever left her; the breathing became
soft, the pulse steady, and the color stole gradually back to her
cheek. The crisis is past. Nature's benign Disposer has permitted
Nature to restore your life's gentle partner, heart to heart, mind
to mind--"
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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 To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: can't all be Darwins, he said; at the same time he doubted whether you
could have your Darwin and your Titian if it weren't for humble people
like ourselves. Lily would have liked to pay him a compliment; you're
not humble, Mr Bankes, she would have liked to have said. But he did
not want compliments (most men do, she thought), and she was a little
ashamed of her impulse and said nothing while he remarked that perhaps
what he was saying did not apply to pictures. Anyhow, said Lily,
tossing off her little insincerity, she would always go on painting,
because it interested her. Yes, said Mr Bankes, he was sure she would,
and, as they reached the end of the lawn he was asking her whether she
had difficulty in finding subjects in London when they turned and saw
To the Lighthouse |
