| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde: LADY WINDERMERE. It is very kind of you, Duchess, to come and tell
me all this. But I can't believe that my husband is untrue to me.
DUCHESS OF BERWICK. Pretty child! I was like that once. Now I
know that all men are monsters. [LADY WINDERMERE rings bell.] The
only thing to do is to feed the wretches well. A good cook does
wonders, and that I know you have. My dear Margaret, you are not
going to cry?
LADY WINDERMERE. You needn't be afraid, Duchess, I never cry.
DUCHESS OF BERWICK. That's quite right, dear. Crying is the
refuge of plain women but the ruin of pretty ones. Agatha,
darling!
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: calluses disappear; and if we meddle with it again, we miss the
novelty and get the blisters. - The story is often quoted of
Whitefield, that he said a sermon was good for nothing until it had
been preached forty times. A lecture doesn't begin to be old until
it has passed its hundredth delivery; and some, I think, have
doubled, if not quadrupled, that number. These old lectures are a
man's best, commonly; they improve by age, also, - like the pipes,
fiddles, and poems I told you of the other day. One learns to make
the most of their strong points and to carry off their weak ones, -
to take out the really good things which don't tell on the
audience, and put in cheaper things that do. All this degrades
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare: he is in the wane: but yet in courtesie, in all reason, we
must stay the time
Lys. Proceed Moone
Moon. All that I haue to say, is to tell you, that the
Lanthorne is the Moone; I, the man in the Moone; this
thorne bush; my thorne bush; and this dog, my dog
Dem. Why all these should be in the Lanthorne: for
they are in the Moone. But silence, heere comes Thisby.
Enter Thisby.
This. This is old Ninnies tombe: where is my loue?
Lyon. Oh.
A Midsummer Night's Dream |
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 A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: other free work which comes to his hand without his choice,
because he desires and seeks no more than that he may in his
faith do works to please God.
But since in this discourse we have undertaken to teach what
righteous and good works are, and are now speaking of the highest
work, it is clear that we do not speak of the second, third and
fourth classes of men, but of the first, into whose likeness all
the others are to grow, and until they do so the first class must
endure and instruct them. Therefore we must not despise, as if
they were hopeless, these men of weak faith, who would gladly do
right and learn, and yet cannot understand because of the
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