| 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: she had only strength enough to move her finger, in exquisite abandonment
to exhaustion, across the page of Grimm's fairy story, while there
throbbed through her, like a pulse in a spring which has expanded to its
full width and now gently ceases to beat, the rapture of successful
creation.
Every throb of this pulse seemed, as he walked away, to enclose her and
her husband, and to give to each that solace which two different notes,
one high, one low, struck together, seem to give each other as they
combine. Yet as the resonance died, and she turned to the Fairy Tale
again, Mrs Ramsey felt not only exhausted in body (afterwards, not at the
time, she always felt this) but also there tinged her physical fatigue
To the Lighthouse |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from King Lear by William Shakespeare: Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life is cheap as beast's. Thou art a lady:
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st
Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need-
You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age; wretched in both.
If it be you that stirs these daughters' hearts
Against their father, fool me not so much
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,
King Lear |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes: And now bright smiling dawn came on apace; the flowers of the field,
revived, raised up their heads, and the crystal waters of the
brooks, murmuring over the grey and white pebbles, hastened to pay
their tribute to the expectant rivers; the glad earth, the unclouded
sky, the fresh breeze, the clear light, each and all showed that the
day that came treading on the skirts of morning would be calm and
bright. The duke and duchess, pleased with their hunt and at having
carried out their plans so cleverly and successfully, returned to
their castle resolved to follow up their joke; for to them there was
no reality that could afford them more amusement.
CHAPTER XXXVI
Don Quixote |
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 Menexenus by Plato: assaults which they endured by sea and land, and how they repelled them. I
will mention only that act of theirs which appears to me to be the noblest,
and which followed that of Marathon and came nearest to it; for the men of
Marathon only showed the Hellenes that it was possible to ward off the
barbarians by land, the many by the few; but there was no proof that they
could be defeated by ships, and at sea the Persians retained the reputation
of being invincible in numbers and wealth and skill and strength. This is
the glory of the men who fought at sea, that they dispelled the second
terror which had hitherto possessed the Hellenes, and so made the fear of
numbers, whether of ships or men, to cease among them. And so the soldiers
of Marathon and the sailors of Salamis became the schoolmasters of Hellas;
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