| 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: ironically, flicking his sprig.
Hating his father, James brushed away the tickling spray with which in a
manner peculiar to him, compound of severity and humour, he teased his
youngest son's bare leg.
She was trying to get these tiresome stockings finished to send to
Sorley's little boy tomorrow, said Mrs Ramsay.
There wasn't the slightest possible chance that they could go to the
Lighthouse tomorrow, Mr Ramsay snapped out irascibly.
How did he know? she asked. The wind often changed.
The extraordinary irrationality of her remark, the folly of women's minds
enraged him. He had ridden through the valley of death, been shattered
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 McTeague by Frank Norris: years he had spent there trundling the heavy cars of ore
in and out of the tunnel under the direction of his father.
For thirteen days of each fortnight his father was a steady,
hard-working shift-boss of the mine. Every other Sunday he
became an irresponsible animal, a beast, a brute, crazy with
alcohol.
McTeague remembered his mother, too, who, with the help of
the Chinaman, cooked for forty miners. She was an
overworked drudge, fiery and energetic for all that, filled
with the one idea of having her son rise in life and enter a
profession. The chance had come at last when the father
McTeague |
