| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence: The houses themselves were substantial and very decent.
One could walk all round, seeing little front gardens with auriculas
and saxifrage in the shadow of the bottom block, sweet-williams and pinks
in the sunny top block; seeing neat front windows, little porches,
little privet hedges, and dormer windows for the attics. But that
was outside; that was the view on to the uninhabited parlours of all
the colliers' wives. The dwelling-room, the kitchen, was at the back
of the house, facing inward between the blocks, looking at a scrubby
back garden, and then at the ash-pits. And between the rows,
between the long lines of ash-pits, went the alley, where the children
played and the women gossiped and the men smoked. So, the actual
Sons and Lovers |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: his head, he had passed beyond the troubles of this earth. But the
words which he had spoken remained fixed in the hearts of those who
heard them, though they were told to none except to Guatemoc.
Thus then in my presence and in that of Otomie died Cuitlahua,
emperor of the Aztecs, when he had reigned but fifteen weeks. Once
more the nation mourned its king, the chief of many a thousand of
its children whom the pestilence swept with him to the 'Mansions of
the Sun,' or perchance to the 'darkness behind the Stars.'
But the mourning was not for long, for in the urgency of the times
it was necessary that a new emperor should be crowned to take
command of the armies and rule the nation. Therefore on the morrow
Montezuma's Daughter |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Damaged Goods by Upton Sinclair: would you answer to that?"
"I would answer, that a single one would have been sufficient to
bring you to me."
"No, sir!" cried George. "It could not have been either of those
women." He went on to tell the doctor about his first mistress,
and then about Lizette. Finally he told about Henriette, how
much he adored her. He could really use such a word--he loved
her most tenderly. She was so good--and he had thought himself
so lucky!
As he went on, he could hardly keep from going to pieces. "I had
everything," he exclaimed, "everything a man needed! All who
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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 Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: of masses, of position, and of value.
Appearance is, in fact, a matter of effect merely, and it is with
the effects of nature that you have to deal, not with the real
condition of the object. What you, as painters, have to paint is
not things as they are but things as they seem to be, not things as
they are but things as they are not.
No object is so ugly that, under certain conditions of light and
shade, or proximity to other things, it will not look beautiful; no
object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not
look ugly. I believe that in every twenty-four hours what is
beautiful looks ugly, and what is ugly looks beautiful, once.
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