| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: "Yes, you will!" persisted Jo. "You'll get over this after
a while, and find some lovely accomplished girl, who will adore
you, and make a fine mistress for your fine house. I shouldn't.
I'm homely and awkward and odd and old, and you'd be ashamed
of me, and we should quarrel--we can't help it even now, you see-and
I shouldn't like elegant society and you would, and you'd
hate my scribbling, and I couldn't get on without it, and we
should be unhappy, and wish we hadn't done it, and everything
would be horrid!"
"Anything more?" asked asked Laurie, finding it hard to
listen patiently to this prophetic burst.
Little Women |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: to any who think such elucidation of the poem worth the trouble.
To another work of anthropo-logy I am indebted in general, one which has
influenced our generation profoundly; I mean _The Golden Bough_; I have
used especially the two volumes _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_. Anyone who is
acquainted with these works will immediately recognize in the poem
certain references to vegetation ceremonies.
<1> Macmillan] Cambridge.
I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD
Line 20. Cf. Ezekiel 2:7.
23. Cf. Ecclesiastes 12:5.
31. _V. Tristan und Isolde_, i, verses 5-8.
The Waste Land |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: moment when her lips turned white, and she was clasping my hand still
in hers when death chilled them. So I killed myself that she might not
lie alone in her sepulchral bed, under her marble sheet. Teresa is
above and I am here. I could not bear to leave her, but God has
divided us. Why, then, did He unite us on earth? He is jealous!
Paradise was no doubt so much the fairer on the day when Teresa
entered in.
" 'Do you see her? She is sad in her bliss; she is parted from me!
Paradise must be a desert to her.'
" 'Master,' said I with tears, for I thought of my love, 'when this
one shall desire Paradise for God's sake alone, shall he not be
|
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 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: Away ran the girls, too eager to get in to have time for speech.
They ran through the vestibule into the breakfast-room; from
thence to the library; their father was in neither; and they were
on the point of seeking him upstairs with their mother, when
they were met by the butler, who said:
"If you are looking for my master, ma'am, he is walking
towards the little copse."
Upon this information, they instantly passed through the hall
once more, and ran across the lawn after their father, who was
deliberately pursuing his way towards a small wood on one side
of the paddock.
Pride and Prejudice |
