| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: to you some day. When one is in love, one always begins by
deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others.
That is what the world calls a romance. You know her, at any rate,
I suppose?"
"Of course I know her. On the first night I was at the theatre,
the horrid old Jew came round to the box after the performance was over
and offered to take me behind the scenes and introduce me to her.
I was furious with him, and told him that Juliet had been dead
for hundreds of years and that her body was lying in a marble
tomb in Verona. I think, from his blank look of amazement,
that he was under the impression that I had taken too much champagne,
The Picture of Dorian Gray |
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 Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: which all eyes are attracted.
He makes himself remarked also by his "neglige," if we may borrow from
Moliere the word which Eliante uses to express the want of personal
neatness. His clothes always seem to have been twisted, frayed, and
crumpled intentionally, in order to harmonize with his physiognomy. He
keeps one of his hands habitually in the bosom of his waistcoat in the
pose which Girodet's portrait of Monsieur de Chateaubriand has
rendered famous; but less to imitate that great man (for he does not
wish to resemble any one) than to rumple the over-smooth front of his
shirt. His cravat is no sooner put on than it is twisted by the
convulsive motions of his head, which are quick and abrupt, like those
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