| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Proposed Roads To Freedom by Bertrand Russell: Museums, free libraries, and free public schools; parks and
pleasure grounds; paved and lighted streets, free for everybody's
use; water supplied to private dwellings, with a growing tendency
towards disregarding the exact amount of it used by the
individual, tramways and railways which have already begun to
introduce the season ticket or the uniform tax, and will surely
go much further on this line when they are no longer private
property: all these are tokens showing in what direction further
progress is to be expected.''--Kropotkin, ``Anarchist Communism.''
[42] An able discussion of this question, at of various others,
from the standpoint of reasoned and temperate opposition to
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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 Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: sections, and its wondrous, crooked, tortuous streets, was an
open book to Titee. There was not a nook or corner that he did
not know or could not tell of. There was not a bit of gossip
among the gamins, little Creole and Spanish fellows, with dark
skins and lovely eyes, like spaniels, that Titee could not tell
of. He knew just exactly when it was time for crawfish to be
plentiful down in the Claiborne and Marigny canals; just when a
poor, breadless fellow might get a job in the big bone-yard and
fertilising factory, out on the railroad track; and as for the
levee, with its ships and schooners and sailors, how he could
revel in them! The wondrous ships, the pretty little schooners,
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: the Romans, and repaired by later heroes, past cities and castles
whose very names were music to my ears, and each of which was the
subject of a legend. There were Ehrenbreitstein and Rolandseck
and Coblentz, which I knew only in history. They were ruins that
interested me chiefly. There seemed to come up from its waters
and its vine-clad hills and valleys a hushed music as of
Crusaders departing for the Holy Land. I floated along under the
spell of enchantment, as if I had been transported to an heroic
age, and breathed an atmosphere of chivalry.
Soon after, I went to see a panorama of the Mississippi, and as I
worked my way up the river in the light of today, and saw the
Walking |
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 Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: it, people must nowadays have something charming in their
surroundings. Fortunately for them, their assumption of authority
in these art-matters came to entire grief.
It is evident, then, that all authority in such things is bad.
People sometimes inquire what form of government is most suitable
for an artist to live under. To this question there is only one
answer. The form of government that is most suitable to the artist
is no government at all. Authority over him and his art is
ridiculous. It has been stated that under despotisms artists have
produced lovely work. This is not quite so. Artists have visited
despots, not as subjects to be tyrannised over, but as wandering
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