| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: A pleasant sort of warmth along the shoulders.
HAMILTON
If so it is you think, you may as well
Give over thinking. We are done with ermine.
What I fear most is not the multitude,
But those who are to loop it with a string
That has one end in France and one end here.
I'm not so fortified with observation
That I could swear that more than half a score
Among us who see lightning see that ruin
Is not the work of thunder. Since the world
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum: thinking deeply.
"Of two dangers," said he, it is wise to choose
the least. What do you suppose these invaders
want?"
"Let the Long-Eared Hearer listen to them,"
suggested Kaliko.
"Call him here at once!" commanded Ruggedo
eagerly.
So in a few minutes there entered the cavern a
nome with enormous ears, who bowed low before the
King.
Tik-Tok of Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: fashion, and try the mettle of your words. Here lies the point:--You want
to have it proven to you that the soul is imperishable and immortal, and
the philosopher who is confident in death appears to you to have but a vain
and foolish confidence, if he believes that he will fare better in the
world below than one who has led another sort of life, unless he can prove
this; and you say that the demonstration of the strength and divinity of
the soul, and of her existence prior to our becoming men, does not
necessarily imply her immortality. Admitting the soul to be longlived, and
to have known and done much in a former state, still she is not on that
account immortal; and her entrance into the human form may be a sort of
disease which is the beginning of dissolution, and may at last, after the
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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 Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: life of pleasure. Two other similar plays Wilde invented in prison,
AHAB AND ISABEL and PHARAOH; he would never write them down, though
often importuned to do so. Pharaoh was intensely dramatic and
perhaps more original than any of the group. None of these works
must be confused with the manuscripts stolen from 16 Tite Street in
1895--namely, the enlarged version of Mr. W. H., the second draft of
A Florentine Tragedy, and The Duchess of Padua (which, existing in a
prompt copy, was of less importance than the others); nor with The
Cardinal of Arragon, the manuscript of which I never saw. I
scarcely think it ever existed, though Wilde used to recite proposed
passages for it.
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