| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: "How can I move thee? Will no entreaties cause thee to turn a
favourable eye upon thy creature, who implores thy goodness and
compassion? Believe me, Frankenstein, I was benevolent; my soul
glowed with love and humanity; but am I not alone, miserably alone?
You, my creator, abhor me; what hope can I gather from your fellow
creatures, who owe me nothing? They spurn and hate me. The desert
mountains and dreary glaciers are my refuge. I have wandered here
many days; the caves of ice, which I only do not fear, are a
dwelling to me, and the only one which man does not grudge.
These bleak skies I hail, for they are kinder to me than your
fellow beings. If the multitude of mankind knew of my existence,
Frankenstein |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Case of the Registered Letter by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: assurance that he, Muller, believed Graumann innocent, and believed
also that within a day or two he would return to G- with proofs
that his belief was the right one.
Three days later Muller returned to Grunau and went at once to the
Graumann home. It was quite late when he arrived, but he had
already notified Miss Roemer by telegram as to his coming, with a
request that she should be ready to see him. He found her waiting
for him, pale and anxious-eyed, when he arrived. "I have been to
Frankfurt am Main," he said, "and I have seen Mr. Pernburg - "
"Yes, yes, that is the name; now I remember," interrupted the girl
eagerly. "That is the name of John's friend there."
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson: And him, that other, reigning in his place,
Lord of his rights and of his children's love,--
Then he, tho' Miriam Lane had told him all,
Because things seen are mightier than things heard,
Stagger'd and shook, holding the branch, and fear'd
To send abroad a shrill and terrible cry,
Which in one moment, like the blast of doom,
Would shatter all the happiness of the hearth.
He therefore turning softly like a thief,
Lest the harsh shingle should grate underfoot,
And feeling all along the garden-wall,
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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: was that by doing that the unity of the whole might be broken. She
stopped; she did not want to bore him; she took the canvas lightly off the
easel.
But it had been seen; it had been taken from her. This man had shared
with her something profoundly intimate. And, thanking Mr Ramsay for it
and Mrs Ramsay for it and the hour and the place, crediting the world with
a power which she had not suspected--that one could walk away down that
long gallery not alone any more but arm in arm with somebody--the
strangest feeling in the world, and the most exhilarating--she nicked
the catch of her paint-box to, more firmly than was necessary, and the
nick seemed to surround in a circle forever the paint-box, the lawn,
To the Lighthouse |
