| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: be any good men at all.
MENO: How do you mean, Socrates?
SOCRATES: I mean that good men are necessarily useful or profitable. Were
we not right in admitting this? It must be so.
MENO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And in supposing that they will be useful only if they are true
guides to us of action--there we were also right?
MENO: Yes.
SOCRATES: But when we said that a man cannot be a good guide unless he
have knowledge (phrhonesis), this we were wrong.
MENO: What do you mean by the word 'right'?
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: So the folk of Vaiau sailed and were glad all day,
Coasting the palm-tree cape and crossing the populous bay
By all the towns of the Tevas; and still as they bowled along,
Boat would answer to boat with jest and laughter and song,
And the people of all the towns trooped to the sides of the sea
And gazed from under the hand or sprang aloft on the tree,
Hailing and cheering. Time failed them for more to do;
The holiday village careened to the wind, and was gone from view
Swift as a passing bird; and ever as onward it bore,
Like the cry of the passing bird, bequeathed its song to the shore -
Desirable laughter of maids and the cry of delight of the child.
Ballads |
| 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: Ramsay. She knew all about THAT, said Mrs Ramsay. He talked of
nothing else. It was about the influence of somebody upon something.
"Well, it's all he has to count on," said Mr Ramsay. "Pray Heaven he
won't fall in love with Prue," said Mrs Ramsay. He'd disinherit her if
she married him, said Mr Ramsay. He did not look at the spot about a
foot or so above them. There was no harm in him, he added, and was
just about to say that anyhow he was the only young man in England who
admired his--when he choked it back. He would not bother her again
about his books. These flowers seemed creditable, Mr Ramsay said,
lowering his gaze and noticing something red, something brown. Yes, but
then these she had put in with her own hands, said Mrs Ramsay. The
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 The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: supplying them with hypocritical pretexts. But hypocrisy also
imposes obligations, and with the pretext usually couples some
restriction; and when the passion gust is over, the piety may
bring a reaction of repentance which the irreligious natural man
would not have shown.
For many of the historic aberrations which have been laid to her
charge, religion as such, then, is not to blame. Yet of the
charge that over-zealousness or fanaticism is one of her
liabilities we cannot wholly acquit her, so I will next make a
remark upon that point. But I will preface it by a preliminary
remark which connects itself with much that follows.
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