| 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: However, I do not wish to dwell any further upon individual
instances. Personal experience is a most vicious and limited
circle. All that I desire to point out is the general principle
that Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life, and I feel
sure that if you think seriously about it you will find that it is
true. Life holds the mirror up to Art, and either reproduces some
strange type imagined by painter or sculptor, or realises in fact
what has been dreamed in fiction. Scientifically speaking, the
basis of life - the energy of life, as Aristotle would call it - is
simply the desire for expression, and Art is always presenting
various forms through which this expression can be attained. Life
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: chandler's runner, who had brought his mail at the mo-
ment of anchoring. For the second time in his life he
was appalled, and remained stock-still at the cabin door
with the paper trembling between his fingers. Open a
boarding-house! Two hundred pounds for a start! The
only resource! And he did not know where to lay his
hands on two hundred pence.
All that night Captain Whalley walked the poop of
his anchored ship, as though he had been about to close
with the land in thick weather, and uncertain of his
position after a run of many gray days without a sight
End of the Tether |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: The three friends followed the three deputies, at a distance, into the
lobby.
"Cousin, look at those two men," said Leon, pointing out to him a
former minister and the leader of the Left Centre. "Those are two men
who really have 'the ear of the Chamber,' and who are called in jest
ministers of the department of the Opposition. They have the ear of
the Chamber so completely that they are always pulling it."
"It is four o'clock," said Bixiou, "let us go back to the rue de
Berlin."
"Yes; you've now seen the heart of the government, cousin, and you
must next be shown the ascarides, the taenia, the intestinal worm,--
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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 Heroes by Charles Kingsley: is over all His works, and that He understands the hearts of
all people, and fashions all their works. And St. Paul told
these old Greeks in after times, when they had grown wicked
and fallen low, that they ought to have known better, because
they were God's offspring, as their own poets had said; and
that the good God had put them where they were, to seek the
Lord, and feel after Him, and find Him, though He was not far
from any one of them. And Clement of Alexandria, a great
Father of the Church, who was as wise as he was good, said
that God had sent down Philosophy to the Greeks from heaven,
as He sent down the Gospel to the Jews.
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