| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: reserved and stately game. There were six tables
in Viola's pretty living-room, with a little conserva-
tory at one end and a leaping hearth fire at the other.
Jane's partner was a stout old gentleman whose wife
was shrieking with merriment at an auction-bridge
table. The other whist-players were a stupid, very
small young man who was aimlessly willing to play
anything, and an amiable young woman who be-
lieved in self-denial. Jane played conscientiously.
She returned trump leads, and played second hand
low, and third high, and it was not until the third
|
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: let its sails drop down; and then, with a natural instinct to complete the
picture, after this swift movement, both of them looked at the dunes
far away, and instead of merriment felt come over them some
sadness--because the thing was completed partly, and partly because
distant views seem to outlast by a million years (Lily thought) the gazer
and to be communing already with a sky which beholds an earth entirely
at rest.
Looking at the far sand hills, William Bankes thought of Ramsay: thought
of a road in Westmorland, thought of Ramsay striding along a road by
himself hung round with that solitude which seemed to be his natural air.
But this was suddenly interrupted, William Bankes remembered (and this
To the Lighthouse |
