| 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: quivering and now, when the breeze falls, settles, leaf by leaf, into
quiet.
It didn't matter, any of it, she thought. A great man, a great book,
fame--who could tell? She knew nothing about it. But it was his way
with him, his truthfulness--for instance at dinner she had been
thinking quite instinctively, If only he would speak! She had complete
trust in him. And dismissing all this, as one passes in diving now a
weed, now a straw, now a bubble, she felt again, sinking deeper, as she
had felt in the hall when the others were talking, There is something I
want--something I have come to get, and she fell deeper and deeper
without knowing quite what it was, with her eyes closed. And she
To the Lighthouse |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: We cannot help the way in which people speak of us, and probably if
Mrs. Lemon had undertaken to describe Juliet or Imogen, these heroines
would not have seemed poetical. The first vision of Rosamond would
have been enough with most judges to dispel any prejudice excited by
Mrs. Lemon's praise.
Lydgate could not be long in Middlemarch without having that agreeable
vision, or even without making the acquaintance of the Vincy family;
for though Mr. Peacock, whose practice he had paid something to enter on,
had not been their doctor (Mrs. Vincy not liking the lowering system
adopted by him), he had many patients among their connections
and acquaintances. For who of any consequence in Middlemarch was
Middlemarch |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: was very black and her face was very white, and her eyebrows met
in a thick dark line. Her face as she bent over her work was
sullen and brooding, but when she lifted her head suddenly, in
conversation, you were startled by a vivid flash of teeth and
eyes and smile. Her voice was deep and low. She made you a
little uncomfortable. Her eyes seemed always to be asking
something. Around the worktable, mornings, she used to relate
the dream she had had the night before. In these dreams she was
always being pursued by a lover. "And then I woke up,
screaming." Neither she nor the sewing girls knew what she was
revealing in these confidences of hers. But Aunt Sophy, the
One Basket |
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 At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs: "Had Jubal any cousins?" I asked. It was just as well
to know the worst at once.
"Yes," replied Dian, "but they don't count--they all have mates.
Jubal's brothers have no mates because Jubal could get
none for himself. He was so ugly that women ran away
from him--some have even thrown themselves from the cliffs
of Amoz into the Darel Az rather than mate with the Ugly One."
"But what had that to do with his brothers?" I asked.
"I forget that you are not of Pellucidar," said Dian,
with a look of pity mixed with contempt, and the contempt
seemed to be laid on a little thicker than the circumstance
At the Earth's Core |
