| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: do? Without money, nothing; as you know by this time. You are not a
man who can begin a new career by taking off your coat and going to
work in your shirt-sleeves with the tools of an artisan. Besides, your
mother loves you, and she would die to see you come to that."
Oscar sat down and no longer restrained his tears, which flowed
copiously. At last he understood this language, so completely
unintelligible to him ever since his first fault.
"Men without means ought to be perfect," added Moreau, not suspecting
the profundity of that cruel sentence.
"My fate will soon be decided," said Oscar. "I draw my number the day
after to-morrow. Between now and then I will decide upon my future."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: open, and held every day in a shed built on purpose in the fair;
this is for keeping the peace, and deciding controversies in
matters deriving from the business of the fair. The magistrates of
the town of Cambridge are judges in this court, as being in their
jurisdiction, or they holding it by special privilege: here they
determine matters in a summary way, as is practised in those we
call Pye Powder Courts in other places, or as a Court of
Conscience; and they have a final authority without appeal.
I come now to the town and university of Cambridge; I say the town
and university, for though they are blended together in the
situation, and the colleges, halls, and houses for literature are
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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: be echoed; so she turned and felt on the table beside her for a book.
And all the lives we ever lived
And all the lives to be,
Are full of trees and changing leaves,
she murmured, sticking her needles into the stocking. And she opened
the book and began reading here and there at random, and as she did so,
she felt that she was climbing backwards, upwards, shoving her way up
under petals that curved over her, so that she only knew this is white,
or this is red. She did not know at first what the words meant at all.
Steer, hither steer your winged pines, all beaten Mariners
she read and turned the page, swinging herself, zigzagging this way and
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 Tanach: Lamentations 2: 4 He hath bent His bow like an enemy, standing with His right hand as an adversary, and hath slain all that were pleasant to the eye; in the tent of the daughter of Zion He hath poured out His fury like fire.
Lamentations 2: 5 The Lord is become as an enemy, He hath swallowed up Israel; He hath swallowed up all her palaces, He hath destroyed his strongholds; and He hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and moaning.
Lamentations 2: 6 And He hath stripped His tabernacle, as if it were a garden, He hath destroyed His place of assembly; the LORD hath caused to be forgotten in Zion appointed season and sabbath, and hath rejected in the indignation of His anger the king and the priest.
Lamentations 2: 7 The Lord hath cast off His altar, He hath abhorred His sanctuary, He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the LORD, as in the day of a solemn assembly.
Lamentations 2: 8 The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He hath stretched out the line, He hath not withdrawn His hand from destroying; but He hath made the rampart and wall to mourn, they languish together.
Lamentations 2: 9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; He hath destroyed and broken her bars; her king and her princes are among the nations, instruction is no more; yea, her prophets find no vision 
The Tanach |
