| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: by the predominance given to prose, and by the over-importance
assigned to characterisation. The passages in Shakespeare - and
they are many - where the language is uncouth, vulgar, exaggerated,
fantastic, obscene even, are entirely due to Life calling for an
echo of her own voice, and rejecting the intervention of beautiful
style, through which alone should life be suffered to find
expression. Shakespeare is not by any means a flawless artist. He
is too fond of going directly to life, and borrowing life's natural
utterance. He forgets that when Art surrenders her imaginative
medium she surrenders everything. Goethe says, somewhere -
In der Beschrankung zeigt Fsich erst der Meister,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: If these demigods differed from others of their class, it was only
in being more commonplace, and in not meddling much with man.
Even such personification of natural forces, simple enough to be
self-suggested, quickly disappeared. The various awe-compelling
phenomena soon ceased to have any connection with the
anthropomorphic noumena they had begotten. For instance, the
sun-goddess, we are informed, was one day lured out of a cavern,
where she was sulking in consequence of the provoking behavior of
her younger brother, by her curiosity at the sight of her own face
in a mirror, ingeniously placed before the entrance for the purpose.
But no Japanese would dream now of casting any such reflections,
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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 Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray
to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other.
It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's
assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces;
but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both
could not be answered--that of neither has been answered fully.
The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because
of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe
to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose
that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the
providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued
Second Inaugural Address |
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: the children were laughing at that, she twitched the stockings out, and
all the fine gravings came drawn with steel instruments about her lips
and forehead, and she grew still like a tree which has been tossing and
quivering and now, when the breeze falls, settles, leaf by leaf, into
quiet.
It didn't matter, any of it, she thought. A great man, a great book,
fame--who could tell? She knew nothing about it. But it was his way
with him, his truthfulness--for instance at dinner she had been
thinking quite instinctively, If only he would speak! She had complete
trust in him. And dismissing all this, as one passes in diving now a
weed, now a straw, now a bubble, she felt again, sinking deeper, as she
To the Lighthouse |
