| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: philosophy, and that was the enthusiasm of the philosopher. There
was never any one more vigorously determined to be pleased; and if
he was not a great logician, and so had no right to convince the
intellect, he was certainly something of a poet, and had a
fascination to seduce the heart. What he could not achieve in his
customary humour of a radiant admiration of himself and his
circumstances, he sometimes effected in his fits of gloom.
'Boy,' he would say, 'avoid me to-day. If I were superstitious, I
should even beg for an interest in your prayers. I am in the black
fit; the evil spirit of King Saul, the hag of the merchant Abudah,
the personal devil of the mediaeval monk, is with me - is in me,'
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: brutal popular control, to authority - in fact the authority of
either the general ignorance of the community, or the terror and
greed for power of an ecclesiastical or governmental class. Of
course, we have to a very great extent got rid of any attempt on
the part of the community, or the Church, or the Government, to
interfere with the individualism of speculative thought, but the
attempt to interfere with the individualism of imaginative art
still lingers. In fact, it does more than linger; it is
aggressive, offensive, and brutalising.
In England, the arts that have escaped best are the arts in which
the public take no interest. Poetry is an instance of what I mean.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: in my gowns, in my way of dressing my hair. In a moment I saw the
distance between me and good taste. Next time you will receive a
duchess, you shall not know me again! Ah! how good you have been
to your Claudine! How many and many a time I have thanked you for
telling me those things! What interest lay in those few words! You
have taken thought for that thing belonging to you called
Claudine? /This/ imbecile would never have opened my eyes; he
thinks that everything I do is right; and besides, he is much too
humdrum, too matter-of-fact to have any feeling for the beautiful.
" 'Tuesday is very slow of coming for my impatient mind! On
Tuesday I shall be with you for several hours. Ah! when it comes I
|
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 A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: carry her the whole distance home, so they had to put her into the
boat which had just served to kill her son, and they rowed back round
the tower by the channel of Croisic. Well, well! the belle Brouin, as
they called her, didn't last a week. She died begging her husband to
burn that accursed boat. Oh, he did it! As for him, he became I don't
know what; he staggered about like a man who can't carry his wine.
Then he went away and was gone ten days, and after he returned he put
himself where you saw him, and since he has been there he has never
said one word."
The fisherman related this history rapidly and more simply than I can
write it. The lower classes make few comments as they relate a thing;
|
