| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw: the drama of his life as a spectator sees a play. Laugh if you feel
inclined: no man sees the comic side of it more than I. In the
theatre of life everyone may be amused except the actor.
_[Brightening]_ Theres an idea in this: an idea for a picture. What
a pity young Bentley is not a painter! Tarleton meditating on his
destiny. Not in a toga. Not in the trappings of the tragedian or the
philosopher. In plain coat and trousers: a man like any other man.
And beneath that coat and trousers a human soul. Tarleton's
Underwear! _[He goes out gravely into the vestibule]._
MRS TARLETON. _[fondly]_ I suppose it's a wife's partiality, Lord
Summerhays; but I do think John is really great. I'm sure he was
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Sportsman by Xenophon: The company being come to some place where a boar is thought to lie,
the first step is to bring up the pack,[11] which done, they will
loose a single Laconian bitch, and keeping the rest in leash, beat
about with this one hound.[12] As soon as she has got on the boar's
track, let them follow in order, one after another, close on the
tracking hound, who gives the lead to the whole company.[13] Even to
the huntsmen themselves many a mark of the creature will be plain,
such as his footprints on soft portions of the ground, and in the
thick undergrowth of forests broken twigs; and, where there are single
trees, the scars made by his tusks.[14] As she follows up the trail
the hound will, as a general rule, finally arrive at some well-wooded
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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 Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: surface of society. The more important leaders of the Proletariat, in
its councils, and the press, fall one after another victims of the
courts, and ever more questionable figures step to the front. It partly
throws itself it upon doctrinaire experiments, "co-operative banking"
and "labor exchange" schemes; in other words, movements, in which it
goes into movements in which it gives up the task of revolutionizing the
old world with its own large collective weapons and on the contrary,
seeks to bring about its emancipation, behind the back of society, in
private ways, within the narrow bounds of its own class conditions, and,
consequently, inevitably fails. The proletariat seems to be able
neither to find again the revolutionary magnitude within itself nor to
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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 Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: sheep and thinks to himself: They won't stay. . . Suddenly the
ship lifts a little and sets down with a thump. Tide rising.
Everybody beginning to look out for the life-boat. Some of the men
made her out far away and also two more tugs. But the gale has
come on again, and everybody knows that no tug will ever dare come
near the ship.
"That's the end, Captain Harry says, very low. . . . Cloete thinks
he never felt so cold in all his life. . . And I feel as if I
didn't care to live on just now, mutters Captain Harry . . . Your
wife's ashore, looking on, says Cloete . . . Yes. Yes. It must be
awful for her to look at the poor old ship lying here done for.
Within the Tides |
