| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: himself, the criterion by which we judge the measure of civilization?
Possibly not. Possibly the greatest good requires the existence of a
slave class. The liftman in the Tube is an eternal necessity. The
thought was distasteful to him. He tossed his head. To avoid it, he
would find some way of snubbing the predominance of the arts. He would
argue that the world exists for the average human being; that the arts are
merely a decoration imposed on the top of human life; they do not express
it. Nor is Shakespeare necessary to it. Not knowing precisely why it was
that he wanted to disparage Shakespeare and come to the rescue of the man
who stands eternally in the door of the lift, he picked a leaf sharply
from the hedge. All this would have to be dished up for the young men at
To the Lighthouse |
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 A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: evoked Paradise, the Flood, the Tower of Babel, the blazing cities,
the dying nations, the shattered idols; and out of this she developed
a great respect for the Almighty and a great fear of His wrath. Then,
when she had listened to the Passion, she wept. Why had they crucified
Him who loved little children, nourished the people, made the blind
see, and who, out of humility, had wished to be born among the poor,
in a stable? The sowings, the harvests, the wine-presses, all those
familiar things which the Scriptures mention, formed a part of her
life; the word of God sanctified them; and she loved the lambs with
increased tenderness for the sake of the Lamb, and the doves because
of the Holy Ghost.
A Simple Soul |
