| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: numbers engaged. We are done with the nation;
henceforth we deal only with the knights. English
knights can be killed, but they cannot be conquered.
We know what is before us. While one of these men
remains alive, our task is not finished, the war is not
ended. We will kill them all." [Loud and long con-
tinued applause.]
I picketed the great embankments thrown up around
our lines by the dynamite explosion -- merely a look-
out of a couple of boys to announce the enemy when
he should appear again.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: Theatre Society in 1906. In the Speaker of July 14th, 1906,
however, some of the iterated misrepresentations of fact were
corrected. No attempt was made to controvert the opinion of an
ignorant critic: his veracity only was impugned. The powers of
vaticination possessed by such judges of drama can be fairly tested
in the career of Salome on the European stage, apart from the opera.
In an introduction to the English translation published by Mr. John
Lane it is pointed out that Wilde's confusion of Herod Antipas
(Matt. xiv. 1) with Herod the Great (Matt. ii. 1) and Herod Agrippa
I. (Acts xii. 23) is intentional, and follows a mediaeval
convention. There is no attempt at historical accuracy or
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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 Theaetetus by Plato: his condition worse than if he knew. For the penalty of injustice is not
death or stripes, but the fatal necessity of becoming more and more unjust.
Two patterns of life are set before him; the one blessed and divine, the
other godless and wretched; and he is growing more and more like the one
and unlike the other. He does not see that if he continues in his cunning,
the place of innocence will not receive him after death. And yet if such a
man has the courage to hear the argument out, he often becomes dissatisfied
with himself, and has no more strength in him than a child.--But we have
digressed enough.
'For my part, Socrates, I like the digressions better than the argument,
because I understand them better.'
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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 Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad: Ortega's voice in the hall asked distinctly: "Eh? What's this?"
and then he kept still on his side listening, but he must have
thought that his ears had deceived him. He was getting tired, too.
He was keeping quiet out there - resting. Presently he sighed
deeply; then in a harsh melancholy tone he started again.
"My love, my soul, my life, do speak to me. What am I that you
should take so much trouble to pretend that you aren't there? Do
speak to me," he repeated tremulously, following this mechanical
appeal with a string of extravagantly endearing names, some of them
quite childish, which all of a sudden stopped dead; and then after
a pause there came a distinct, unutterably weary: "What shall I do
The Arrow of Gold |
