| 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: of the sun and deals directly with things. I feel sure that in
elemental forces there is purification, and I want to go back to
them and live in their presence.
Of course to one so modern as I am, 'Enfant de mon siecle,' merely
to look at the world will be always lovely. I tremble with
pleasure when I think that on the very day of my leaving prison
both the laburnum and the lilac will be blooming in the gardens,
and that I shall see the wind stir into restless beauty the swaying
gold of the one, and make the other toss the pale purple of its
plumes, so that all the air shall be Arabia for me. Linnaeus fell
on his knees and wept for joy when he saw for the first time the
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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 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: divine serenity.
To the noble simplicity which characterized his head, d'Arthez added a
naive expression, the naturalness of a child, and a touching
kindliness. He did not have that politeness tinged with insincerity
with which, in society, the best-bred persons and the most amiable
assume qualities in which they are often lacking, leaving those they
have thus duped wounded and distressed. He might, indeed, fail to
observe certain rules of social life, owing to his isolated mode of
living; but he never shocked the sensibilities, and therefore this
perfume of savagery made the peculiar affability of a man of great
talent the more agreeable; such men know how to leave their
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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 What is Man? by Mark Twain: the middle sentence: "an idealist immersed in realities who
involuntarily transmutes the events under his eye into something
like the visionary issues of reverie." With a hundred words to
do it with, the literary artisan could catch that airy thought
and tie it down and reduce it to a concrete condition, visible,
substantial, understandable and all right, like a cabbage; but
the artist does it with twenty, and the result is a flower.
The quoted phrase, like a thousand others that have come
from the same source, has the quality of certain scraps of verse
which take hold of us and stay in our memories, we do not
understand why, at first: all the words being the right words,
What is Man? |
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 Marie by H. Rider Haggard: started a trade with the natives and with parties of the emigrant Boers
who were beginning to enter the territory by the overland route. Those
days I passed on shore, though I would not allow Hans to accompany me
lest he should desert, employing my time in picking up all the
information I could about the state of affairs, especially with
reference to the Zulus, a people with whom I was destined ere long to
make an intimate acquaintance. Needless to say, I inquired both from
natives and from white men whether anything was known of the fate of
Marais's party, but no one seemed even to have heard of them. One thing
I did learn, however, that my old friend, Pieter Retief, with a large
following, had crossed the Quathlamba Mountains, which we now know as
Marie |
