| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: across the hilltop and ruffles the lake does not penetrate into
these shady recesses, and therefore all the inhabitants take the
noontide as their hour of rest. Only the big woodpecker--he of the
scarlet head and mighty bill--is indefatigable, and somewhere
unseen is "tapping the hollow beech-tree," while a wakeful little
bird,--I guess it is the black-throated green warbler,--prolongs
his dreamy, listless ditty,--'te-de-terit-sca,--'te-de-us--wait.
After about an hour of easy walking, our trail began to ascend more
sharply. We passed over the shoulder of a ridge and around the
edge of a fire-slash, and then we had the mountain fairly before
us. Not that we could see anything of it, for the woods still shut
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: The artist could not see his way to disabuse the ladies of their
error. Shamefacedly, with drooping head, he murmured, "This is
Psyche."
"In the character of Psyche? Charming!" said the mother, smiling, upon
which the daughter smiled too. "Confess, Lise, it pleases you to be
painted in the character of Psyche better than any other way? What a
sweet idea! But what treatment! It is Correggio himself. I must say
that, although I had read and heard about you, I did not know you had
so much talent. You positively must paint me too." Evidently the lady
wanted to be portrayed as some kind of Psyche too.
"What am I to do with them?" thought the artist. "If they will have it
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Rivers to the Sea by Sara Teasdale: I gave my second tears,
I gave my third love silence
Thru all the years.
My first love gave me singing,
My second eyes to see,
But oh, it was my third love
Who gave my soul to me.
IV
FROM THE SEA
ALL beauty calls you to me, and you seem,
Past twice a thousand miles of shifting sea,
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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: apparent. She had been admired. She had been loved. She had entered
rooms where mourners sat. Tears had flown in her presence. Men, and
women too, letting go to the multiplicity of things, had allowed
themselves with her the relief of simplicity. It injured her that he
should shrink. It hurt her. And yet not cleanly, not rightly. That was
what she minded, coming as it did on top of her discontent with her
husband; the sense she had now when Mr Carmichael shuffled past, just
nodding to her question, with a book beneath his arm, in his yellow
slippers, that she was suspected; and that all this desire of hers to
give, to help, was vanity. For her own self-satisfaction was it that she
wished so instinctively to help, to give, that people might say of her,
To the Lighthouse |
