| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Marie by H. Rider Haggard: gun. Beyond, staring at him, stood the lantern-faced Henri Marais,
pulling at his long beard with one hand and holding a rifle in the
other. Behind were two saddled horses in the charge of a raw Kaffir,
who looked on stupidly.
The Vrouw Prinsloo reached the body that lay upon the ground dressed in
what resembled my clothes, and bending down her stout shape with an
effort, turned it over. She glared into its face and then began to
shriek.
"Come here, Henri Marais," she shrieked, "come, see what your beloved
nephew has done! You had a daughter who was all your life to you, Henri
Marais. Well, come, look at her after your beloved nephew has finished
Marie |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: 'So on the tip of his subduing tongue
All kind of arguments and question deep,
All replication prompt, and reason strong,
For his advantage still did wake and sleep:
To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep,
He had the dialect and different skill,
Catching all passions in his craft of will;
'That he did in the general bosom reign
Of young, of old; and sexes both enchanted,
To dwell with him in thoughts, or to remain
In personal duty, following where he haunted:
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| 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: shoes and stockings which those "great fellows," all well grown, angular,
ruthless youngsters, must require. As for being sure which was which, or
in what order they came, that was beyond him. He called them privately
after the Kings and Queens of England; Cam the Wicked, James the Ruthless,
Andrew the Just, Prue the Fair--for Prue would have beauty, he thought,
how could she help it?--and Andrew brains. While he walked up the drive
and Lily Briscoe said yes and no and capped his comments (for she was in
love with them all, in love with this world) he weighed Ramsay's case,
commiserated him, envied him, as if he had seen him divest himself of all
those glories of isolation and austerity which crowned him in youth to
cumber himself definitely with fluttering wings and clucking
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 The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: have submitted his conception to the supreme authority. He had
thrown up his commission, he had thrown up his book, he had thrown
up everything but the instant need to hurry to Rapallo, on the
Genoese shore, where Vereker was making a stay. I wrote him a
letter which was to await him at Aden - I besought him to relieve
my suspense. That he had found my letter was indicated by a
telegram which, reaching me after weary days and in the absence of
any answer to my laconic dispatch to him at Bombay, was evidently
intended as a reply to both communications. Those few words were
in familiar French, the French of the day, which Covick often made
use of to show he wasn't a prig. It had for some persons the
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