| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson: Not dead; he stirs!--but sleeping. I will speak.
Hail, royal knight, we break on thy sweet rest,
Not, doubtless, all unearned by noble deeds.
But bounden art thou, if from Arthur's hall,
To help the weak. Behold, I fly from shame,
A lustful King, who sought to win my love
Through evil ways: the knight, with whom I rode,
Hath suffered misadventure, and my squire
Hath in him small defence; but thou, Sir Prince,
Wilt surely guide me to the warrior King,
Arthur the blameless, pure as any maid,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: shoots, and for the artist and the athlete, the two types that
Greece gave us, they plaited with garlands the leaves of the bitter
laurel and of the wild parsley, which else had been of no service
to men.
We call ours a utilitarian age, and we do not know the uses of any
single thing. We have forgotten that water can cleanse, and fire
purify, and that the Earth is mother to us all. As a consequence
our art is of the moon and plays with shadows, while Greek art is
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.
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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 Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: nosegays had her present converser sent?
"Innocent flowers," she pursued, "as much as he likes. And he sends
me splendours; he knows all the best places--he has found them for
himself; he's wonderful."
"He hasn't told them to me," her friend smiled, "he has a life of
his own." But Strether had swung back to the consciousness that for
himself after all it never would have done. Waymarsh hadn't Mrs.
Waymarsh in the least to consider, whereas Lambert Strether had
constantly, in the inmost honour of his thoughts, to consider Mrs.
Newsome. He liked moreover to feel how much his friend was in the
real tradition. Yet he had his conclusion. "WHAT a rage it is!"
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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 Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce: "SEE these valuable golden eggs," said a Man that owned a Goose.
"Surely a Goose which can lay such eggs as those must have a gold
mine inside her."
So he killed the Goose and cut her open, but found that she was
just like any other goose. Moreover, on examining the eggs that
she had laid he found they were just like any other eggs.
The Wolf and the Feeding Goat
A WOLF saw a Goat feeding at the summit of a rock, where he could
not get at her.
"Why do you stay up there in that sterile place and go hungry?"
said the Wolf. "Down here where I am the broken-bottle vine cometh
Fantastic Fables |
