| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: scheme of conduct: never to look at each other; to avoid meeting; to
speak ill of each other. Self-admiration, swagger, or playing the
disdained swain,--all these old manoeuvres are not to compare on
either part with a false passion professed for an indifferent person
and an air of indifference towards the true idol. If two lovers will
only play that game, the world will always be deceived; but then they
must be very secure of each other.
"Her stalking-horse was a man in high favor, a courtier, cold and
sanctimonious, whom she never received at her own house. This little
comedy was performed for the benefit of simpletons and drawing-room
circles, who laughed at it. Marriage was never spoken of between us;
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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 The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: temperament? It is the temperament of receptivity. That is all.
If a man approaches a work of art with any desire to exercise
authority over it and the artist, he approaches it in such a spirit
that he cannot receive any artistic impression from it at all. The
work of art is to dominate the spectator: the spectator is not to
dominate the work of art. The spectator is to be receptive. He is
to be the violin on which the master is to play. And the more
completely he can suppress his own silly views, his own foolish
prejudices, his own absurd ideas of what Art should be, or should
not be, the more likely he is to understand and appreciate the work
of art in question. This is, of course, quite obvious in the case
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