| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: D'Artagnan scarcely heard him.
"Yes, she of whom you told me one day at Amiens."
Athos uttered a groan, and let his head sink on his hands.
"This is a woman of twenty-six or twenty-eight years."
"Fair," said Athos, "is she not?"
"Very."
"Blue and clear eyes, of a strange brilliancy, with black
eyelids and eyebrows?"
"Yes."
"Tall, well-made? She has lost a tooth, next to the
eyetooth on the left?"
The Three Musketeers |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: by themselves, and I was delighted. Nothing of the sort; he conversed as
usual, and spent the day with me and then went away. Afterwards I
challenged him to the palaestra; and he wrestled and closed with me several
times when there was no one present; I fancied that I might succeed in this
manner. Not a bit; I made no way with him. Lastly, as I had failed
hitherto, I thought that I must take stronger measures and attack him
boldly, and, as I had begun, not give him up, but see how matters stood
between him and me. So I invited him to sup with me, just as if he were a
fair youth, and I a designing lover. He was not easily persuaded to come;
he did, however, after a while accept the invitation, and when he came the
first time, he wanted to go away at once as soon as supper was over, and I
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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 Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: round the pan I found the remains of a blue vilderbeeste that had
evidently been killed within the last three or four days and partially
devoured by lions; and from other indications about I was soon assured
that if the family were not in the pan that day they spent a good deal
of their spare time there. But if there, the question was how to get
them out; for it was clearly impossible to think of going in after them
unless one was quite determined to commit suicide. Now there was a
strong wind blowing from the direction of the waggon, across the reedy
pan towards the bush-clad kloof or donga, and this first gave me the
idea of firing the reeds, which, as I think I told you, were pretty dry.
Accordingly Tom took some matches and began starting little fires to
Long Odds |
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: writing it would be impossible to overestimate - not to the artist
but to the public, blinding them to all, but harming the artist not
at all. Without them we would judge a man simply by his work; but
at present the newspapers are trying hard to induce the public to
judge a sculptor, for instance, never by his statues but by the way
he treats his wife; a painter by the amount of his income and a
poet by the colour of his neck-tie. I said there should be a law,
but there is really no necessity for a new law: nothing could be
easier than to bring the ordinary critic under the head of the
criminal classes. But let us leave such an inartistic subject and
return to beautiful and comely things, remembering that the art
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