| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: herself to her dreary lot. Diffident as she seemed, she was in reality
proud, and would not make a single advance towards the son of a father
said to be rich. People who knew the value of a growing property, said
that the vineyard at Marsac was worth more than eighty thousand
francs, to say nothing of the traditional bits of land which old
Sechard used to buy as they came into the market, for old Sechard had
savings--he was lucky with his vintages, and a clever salesman.
Perhaps David was the only man in Angouleme who knew nothing of his
father's wealth. In David's eyes Marsac was a hovel bought in 1810 for
fifteen or sixteen thousand francs, a place that he saw once a year at
vintage time when his father walked him up and down among the vines
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: do my men, they are always pestering me with their complaints as
soon as ever your back is turned.'
"And the goddess answered, 'Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, you
shall none of you stay here any longer if you do not want to,
but there is another journey which you have got to take before
you can sail homewards. You must go to the house of Hades and of
dread Proserpine to consult the ghost of the blind Theban
prophet Teiresias, whose reason is still unshaken. To him alone
has Proserpine left his understanding even in death, but the
other ghosts flit about aimlessly.'
"I was dismayed when I heard this. I sat up in bed and wept, and
The Odyssey |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: worshipping a God-man, worship the hideous counterfeit, a Man-god--a
poor human being endowed by public opinion with the powers of deity,
while he is the slave of all the weaknesses of humanity. But such,
as an historic fact, has been the last stage of every civilisation--
even that of Rome, which ripened itself upon this earth the last in
ancient times, and, I had almost said, until this very day, except
among the men who speak Teutonic tongues, and who have preserved
through all temptations, and reasserted through all dangers, the
free ideas which have been our sacred heritage ever since Tacitus
beheld us, with respect and awe, among our German forests, and saw
in us the future masters of the Roman Empire.
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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: days was an agony. At the same time it was immensely exciting.
Nothing could be cooler and quieter. Taking out a pen-knife, Mr Bankes
tapped the canvas with the bone handle. What did she wish to indicate by
the triangular purple shape, "just there"? he asked.
It was Mrs Ramsay reading to James, she said. She knew his objection--
that no one could tell it for a human shape. But she had made no attempt
at likeness, she said. For what reason had she introduced them then? he
asked. Why indeed?--except that if there, in that corner, it was bright,
here, in this, she felt the need of darkness. Simple, obvious,
commonplace, as it was, Mr Bankes was interested. Mother and child
then--objects of universal veneration, and in this case the mother was
To the Lighthouse |
