| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: wooden cart--a pious old woman who wanted to
offer prayers and make a vow for his safety. He
could not give me an idea of how large and lofty
and full of noise and smoke and gloom, and clang
of iron, the place was, but some one had told him
it was called Berlin. Then they rang a bell, and
another steam-machine came in, and again he was
taken on and on through a land that wearied his
eyes by its flatness without a single bit of a hill to
be seen anywhere. One more night he spent shut
up in a building like a good stable with a litter of
Amy Foster |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: Did Marguerite Blakeney, "the cleverest woman in Europe,"
really love a fool? Was it love that she had felt for him a year ago
when she married him? Was it love she felt for him now that she
realised that he still loved her, but that he would not become her
slave, her passionate, ardent lover once again? Nay! Marguerite
herself could not have told that. Not at this moment at any rate;
perhaps her pride had sealed her mind against a better understanding
of her own heart. But this she did know--that she meant to capture
that obstinate heart back again. That she would conquer once
more. . .and then, that she would never lose him. . . . She would
keep him, keep his love, deserve it, and cherish it; for this much was
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
| 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: as if the solution had come to her: she knew now what she wanted to do.
But with Mr Ramsay bearing down on her, she could do nothing. Every
time he approached--he was walking up and down the terrace--ruin
approached, chaos approached. She could not paint. She stooped, she
turned; she took up this rag; she squeezed that tube. But all she did
was to ward him off a moment. He made it impossible for her to do
anything. For if she gave him the least chance, if he saw her
disengaged a moment, looking his way a moment, he would be on her,
saying, as he had said last night, "You find us much changed." Last
night he had got up and stopped before her, and said that. Dumb and
staring though they had all sat, the six children whom they used to
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 Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare: It shall be raging mad, and silly mild,
Make the young old, the old become a child. 1152
'It shall suspect where is no cause of fear;
It shall not fear where it should most mistrust;
It shall be merciful, and too severe,
And most deceiving when it seems most just; 1156
Perverse it shall be, where it shows most toward,
Put fear to velour, courage to the coward.
'It shall be cause of war and dire events,
And set dissension 'twixt the son and sire; 1160
Subject and servile to all discontents,
|
