| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: familiar pulse began beating, as the watch begins ticking--one, two,
three, one, two, three. And so on and so on, she repeated, listening
to it, sheltering and fostering the still feeble pulse as one might
guard a weak flame with a news-paper. And so then, she concluded,
addressing herself by bending silently in his direction to William
Bankes--poor man! who had no wife, and no children and dined alone in
lodgings except for tonight; and in pity for him, life being now strong
enough to bear her on again, she began all this business, as a sailor
not without weariness sees the wind fill his sail and yet hardly wants
to be off again and thinks how, had the ship sunk, he would have
whirled round and round and found rest on the floor of the sea.
To the Lighthouse |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: shone out and all the fighting was revealed. Ajax then said to
Menelaus, "Look, Menelaus, and if Antilochus son of Nestor be
still living, send him at once to tell Achilles that by far the
dearest to him of all his comrades has fallen."
Menelaus heeded his words and went his way as a lion from a
stockyard--the lion is tired of attacking the men and hounds, who
keep watch the whole night through and will not let him feast on
the fat of their herd. In his lust of meat he makes straight at
them but in vain, for darts from strong hands assail him, and
burning brands which daunt him for all his hunger, so in the
morning he slinks sulkily away--even so did Menelaus sorely
The Iliad |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence: 'They built their own Tevershall, that's part of their display of
freedom. They built themselves their pretty Tevershall, and they live
their own pretty lives. I can't live their lives for them. Every beetle
must live its own life.'
'But you make them work for you. They live the life of your coal-mine.'
'Not at all. Every beetle finds its own food. Not one man is forced to
work for me.
'Their lives are industrialized and hopeless, and so are ours,' she
cried.
'I don't think they are. That's just a romantic figure of speech, a
relic of the swooning and die-away romanticism. You don't look at all a
Lady Chatterley's Lover |
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 Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: elements enter into the reckoning of your success. There is no
combination of stars in the firmament by which you can forecast the
piscatorial future. When you go a-fishing, you just take your
chances; you offer yourself as a candidate for anything that may be
going; you try your luck.
There are certain days that are favourites among anglers, who regard
them as propitious for the sport. I know a man who believes that
the fish always rise better on Sunday than on any other day in the
week. He complains bitterly of this supposed fact, because his
religious scruples will not allow him to take advantage of it. He
confesses that he has sometimes thought seriously of joining the
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