| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: far more of an individualist than ever I was. I must get far more
out of myself than ever I got, and ask far less of the world than
ever I asked. Indeed, my ruin came not from too great
individualism of life, but from too little. The one disgraceful,
unpardonable, and to all time contemptible action of my life was to
allow myself to appeal to society for help and protection. To have
made such an appeal would have been from the individualist point of
view bad enough, but what excuse can there ever be put forward for
having made it? Of course once I had put into motion the forces of
society, society turned on me and said, 'Have you been living all
this time in defiance of my laws, and do you now appeal to those
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: For his detrimented worth.
Though he's livin' none would know him,
Or at leastwise not as such.
Moral of this woful poem:
Frequent oil your safety-clutch.
Porfer Poog
SAINT, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.
The Duchess of Orleans relates that the irreverent old
calumniator, Marshal Villeroi, who in his youth had known St. Francis
de Sales, said, on hearing him called saint: "I am delighted to hear
that Monsieur de Sales is a saint. He was fond of saying indelicate
The Devil's Dictionary |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Market-Place by Harold Frederic: Mother of Moses! think of it! a FLOWER-show!--and your
Tavender aud I are left to take a stroll together,
and talk over old times and arrange about new times,
and so on, to our hearts' content. Really, it's too
easy! You make me tired!"
The nobleman offered a wan, appealing shadow of a smile.
"I confess to a certain degree of weariness myself,"
he said, humbly.
Thorpe looked at him in his old apathetic, leaden fashion
for a little. "I may tell you that if you HAD got hold
of Tavender," he decided to tell him, "he shouldn't
The Market-Place |
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 Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: bells for the necks of camels; and as they descended deeper into the
rocky foundation, it became evident that the whole mass was a
veritable honeycomb of cells, and that below those already seen were
many others.
Vitellius, Phineas, his interpreter, and Sisenna, chief of the
publicans, walked among these gloomy cells, attended by three eunuchs
bearing torches.
In the deep shadows hideous instruments, invented by barbarians, could
be seen: tomahawks studded with nails; poisoned javelins; pincers
resembling the jaws of crocodiles; in short, the tetrarch possessed in
his castle munitions of war sufficient for forty thousand men.
Herodias |
