| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anabasis by Xenophon: take the throne from Artaxerxes, and the ensuing
return of the Greeks, in which Xenophon played a
leading role. This occurred between 401 B.C. and
March 399 B.C.
PREPARER'S NOTE
This was typed from Dakyns' series, "The Works of Xenophon," a
four-volume set. The complete list of Xenophon's works (though
there is doubt about some of these) is:
Work Number of books
The Anabasis 7
The Hellenica 7
Anabasis |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Kenilworth by Walter Scott: The pedlar of whom we speak bore, accordingly, an active and
unrebuked share in the merriment to which the rafters of the
bonny Black Bear of Cumnor resounded. He had his smile with
pretty Mistress Cicely, his broad laugh with mine host, and his
jest upon dashing Master Goldthred, who, though indeed without
any such benevolent intention on his own part, was the general
butt of the evening. The pedlar and he were closely engaged in a
dispute upon the preference due to the Spanish nether-stock over
the black Gascoigne hose, and mine host had just winked to the
guests around him, as who should say, "You will have mirth
presently, my masters," when the trampling of horses was heard in
Kenilworth |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: where they spend hours in admiration, and end by pinning appropriate
poems on the twigs for later comers to peruse. Fleeting as the
flowers are in fact, they live forever in fancy. For they
constitute one of the commonest motifs of both painting and poetry.
A branch just breaking into bloom seen against the sunrise sky, or a
bough bending its blossoms to the bosom of a stream, is subject
enough for their greatest masters, who thus wed, as it were,
two arts in one,--the spirit of poesy with pictorial form.
This plum-tree is but a blossom. Precocious harbinger of a host
of flowers, its gay heralding over, it vanishes not to be recalled,
for it bears no edible fruit.
|
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 The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: He invented a facile excuse, and having taken the vacant seat
next to her, looked round to see who was there. Dorian bowed
to him shyly from the end of the table, a flush of pleasure
stealing into his cheek. Opposite was the Duchess of Harley,
a lady of admirable good-nature and good temper, much liked
by every one who knew her, and of those ample architectural
proportions that in women who are not duchesses are described
by contemporary historians as stoutness. Next to her sat,
on her right, Sir Thomas Burdon, a Radical member of Parliament,
who followed his leader in public life and in private life
followed the best cooks, dining with the Tories and thinking
The Picture of Dorian Gray |
