| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: With hooked ploughshare turns the soil; from hence
Springs his year's labour; hence, too, he sustains
Country and cottage homestead, and from hence
His herds of cattle and deserving steers.
No respite! still the year o'erflows with fruit,
Or young of kine, or Ceres' wheaten sheaf,
With crops the furrow loads, and bursts the barns.
Winter is come: in olive-mills they bruise
The Sicyonian berry; acorn-cheered
The swine troop homeward; woods their arbutes yield;
So, various fruit sheds Autumn, and high up
Georgics |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: Campegius said at Augsburg that he would be torn to pieces
before he would relinquish the Mass, so, by the help of God,
I, too, would suffer myself to be reduced to ashes before I
would allow a hireling of the Mass, be he good or bad, to be
made equal to Christ Jesus, my Lord and Savior, or to be
exalted above Him. Thus we are and remain eternally separated
and opposed to one another. They feel well enough that when
the Mass falls, the Papacy lies in ruins. Before they will
permit this to occur, they will put us all to death if they
can.
In addition to all this, this dragon's tail, [I mean] the
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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 Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: Poitiers in Tours, where he found, as he expected, the Comte de Saint-
Vallier awaiting his wife, perhaps to make away with her life.
"Monsieur," said the king, "I told you to start at once. Say farewell
to your wife now, and go to the frontier; you will be accompanied by
an escort of honor. As for your instructions and credentials, they
will be in Venice before you get there."
Louis then gave the order--not without adding certain secret
instructions--to a lieutenant of the Scottish guard to take a squad of
men and accompany the ambassador to Venice. Saint-Vallier departed in
haste, after giving his wife a cold kiss which he would fain have made
deadly. Louis XI. then crossed over to the Malemaison, eager to begin
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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 To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: bad French; French may not contain the words that express the speaker's
thoughts; nevertheless speaking French imposes some order, some
uniformity. Replying to her in the same language, Mr Bankes said, "No,
not at all," and Mr Tansley, who had no knowledge of this language,
even spoke thus in words of one syllable, at once suspected its
insincerity. They did talk nonsense, he thought, the Ramsays; and he
pounced on this fresh instance with joy, making a note which, one of
these days, he would read aloud, to one or two friends. There, in a
society where one could say what one liked he would sarcastically
describe "staying with the Ramsays" and what nonsense they talked. It
was worth while doing it once, he would say; but not again. The women
To the Lighthouse |
