| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde: to go and play in the Giant's garden.
It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass. Here and
there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there
were twelve peach-trees that in the spring-time broke out into
delicate blossoms of pink and pearl, and in the autumn bore rich
fruit. The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the
children used to stop their games in order to listen to them. "How
happy we are here!" they cried to each other.
One day the Giant came back. He had been to visit his friend the
Cornish ogre, and had stayed with him for seven years. After the
seven years were over he had said all that he had to say, for his
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: William was kindly commended and his promotion hoped for.
"And there is no reason to suppose," added Sir Thomas,
"but that his visits to us may now be tolerably frequent.
As to Edmund, we must learn to do without him.
This will be the last winter of his belonging to us,
as he has done."
"Yes," said Lady Bertram, "but I wish he was not going away.
They are all going away, I think. I wish they would stay
at home."
This wish was levelled principally at Julia, who had
just applied for permission to go to town with Maria;
Mansfield Park |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: would be exterminated, and so he sent Hermes to them, bearing reverence and
justice to be the ordering principles of cities and the bonds of friendship
and conciliation. Hermes asked Zeus how he should impart justice and
reverence among men:--Should he distribute them as the arts are
distributed; that is to say, to a favoured few only, one skilled individual
having enough of medicine or of any other art for many unskilled ones?
'Shall this be the manner in which I am to distribute justice and reverence
among men, or shall I give them to all?' 'To all,' said Zeus; 'I should
like them all to have a share; for cities cannot exist, if a few only share
in the virtues, as in the arts. And further, make a law by my order, that
he who has no part in reverence and justice shall be put to death, for he
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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: picture on the easel, brushed the mat and blew a little sand along the
floor. At length, desisting, all ceased together, gathered together,
all sighed together; all together gave off an aimless gust of
lamentation to which some door in the kitchen replied; swung wide;
admitted nothing; and slammed to.
[Here Mr Carmichael, who was reading Virgil, blew out his candle. It
was past midnight.]
3
But what after all is one night? A short space, especially when the
darkness dims so soon, and so soon a bird sings, a cock crows, or a
faint green quickens, like a turning leaf, in the hollow of the wave.
To the Lighthouse |
