| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: but for the race.
If this demand be logically expanded, it will take such form as this: Give
us labour! For countless ages, for thousands, millions it may be, we have
laboured. When first man wandered, the naked, newly-erected savage, and
hunted and fought, we wandered with him: each step of his was ours.
Within our bodies we bore the race, on our shoulders we carried it; we
sought the roots and plants for its food; and, when man's barbed arrow or
hook brought the game, our hands dressed it. Side by side, the savage man
and the savage woman, we wandered free together and laboured free together.
And we were contented!
Then a change came.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Richard III by William Shakespeare: By circumstance but to acquit myself.
ANNE. Vouchsafe, diffus'd infection of a man,
Of these known evils but to give me leave
By circumstance to accuse thy cursed self.
GLOUCESTER. Fairer than tongue can name thee, let me have
Some patient leisure to excuse myself.
ANNE. Fouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make
No excuse current but to hang thyself.
GLOUCESTER. By such despair I should accuse myself.
ANNE. And by despairing shalt thou stand excused
For doing worthy vengeance on thyself
Richard III |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: had been already blocked with rice; the place was in part
darkness, full of a foul stale smell, and a cloud of nasty flies; it
had been left, besides, in some disorder, or else the birds,
during their time of tenancy, had knocked the things about; and
the floor, like the deck before we washed it, was spread with
pasty filth. Against the wall, in the far corner, I found a
handsome chest of camphor-wood bound with brass, such as
Chinamen and sailors love, and indeed all of mankind that
plies in the Pacific. From its outside view I could thus make no
deduction; and, strange to say, the interior was concealed. All
the other chests, as I have said already, we had found gaping
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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 The Purse by Honore de Balzac: certain decorative repairs in his studio, was not surprised to
see the dark greasy paint, the oily stains, spots, and other
disagreeable accessories that varied the woodwork. And these
stigmata of poverty are not altogether devoid of poetry in an
artist's eyes.
Mademoiselle Leseigneur herself opened the door. On recognizing
the young artist she bowed, and at the same time, with Parisian
adroitness, and with the presence of mind that pride can lend,
she turned round to shut the door in a glass partition through
which Hippolyte might have caught sight of some linen hung by
lines over patent ironing stoves, an old camp-bed, some wood-
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