| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: fair youth who was being tempted, but not by a lover; and this was the
point: he ingeniously proved that the non-lover should be accepted rather
than the lover.
SOCRATES: O that is noble of him! I wish that he would say the poor man
rather than the rich, and the old man rather than the young one;--then he
would meet the case of me and of many a man; his words would be quite
refreshing, and he would be a public benefactor. For my part, I do so long
to hear his speech, that if you walk all the way to Megara, and when you
have reached the wall come back, as Herodicus recommends, without going in,
I will keep you company.
PHAEDRUS: What do you mean, my good Socrates? How can you imagine that my
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dust by Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman-Julius: from his reading and sent sternly to bed because he must get up
so early. Always work had stolen from him these
treasures--dreams, recreation and knowledge. He had been obliged
to fight the farm and his father for even a modicum of them--the
things that made life worth living. And the irony of it--that
eventually it would be this farm and Martin's driving methods
which, if he became reconciled to his father, would make it
possible for him to drink all the fullness of leisure.
It was too tragic that the very thing which should have stood for
opportunity to the boy had been used to embitter him and drive
him into danger. But he must not lose his birthright. An almost
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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 Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: look ugly. I believe that in every twenty-four hours what is
beautiful looks ugly, and what is ugly looks beautiful, once.
And, the commonplace character of so much of our English painting
seems to me due to the fact that so many of our young artists look
merely at what we may call 'ready-made beauty,' whereas you exist
as artists not to copy beauty but to create it in your art, to wait
and watch for it in nature.
What would you say of a dramatist who would take nobody but
virtuous people as characters in his play? Would you not say he
was missing half of life? Well, of the young artist who paints
nothing but beautiful things, I say he misses one half of the
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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 Princess by Alfred Tennyson: Say to her, I do but wanton in the South,
But in the North long since my nest is made.
'O tell her, brief is life but love is long,
And brief the sun of summer in the North,
And brief the moon of beauty in the South.
'O Swallow, flying from the golden woods,
Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine,
And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee.'
I ceased, and all the ladies, each at each,
Like the Ithacensian suitors in old time,
Stared with great eyes, and laughed with alien lips,
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