The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: another's arms. Then Zeus invented an adjustment of the sexes, which
enabled them to marry and go their way to the business of life. Now the
characters of men differ accordingly as they are derived from the original
man or the original woman, or the original man-woman. Those who come from
the man-woman are lascivious and adulterous; those who come from the woman
form female attachments; those who are a section of the male follow the
male and embrace him, and in him all their desires centre. The pair are
inseparable and live together in pure and manly affection; yet they cannot
tell what they want of one another. But if Hephaestus were to come to them
with his instruments and propose that they should be melted into one and
remain one here and hereafter, they would acknowledge that this was the
|
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 The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: uncurtained by Helen's orders. Darkness fell as sharply as a knife
in this climate, and the town then sprang out in circles and lines
of bright dots beneath them. Buildings which never showed by day
showed by night, and the sea flowed right over the land judging
by the moving lights of the steamers. The sight fulfilled the same
purpose as an orchestra in a London restaurant, and silence
had its setting. William Pepper observed it for some time;
he put on his spectacles to contemplate the scene.
"I've identified the big block to the left," he observed, and pointed
with his fork at a square formed by several rows of lights.
"One should infer that they can cook vegetables," he added.
|