| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: arrested growth, or of disease, or of death.
Individualism will also be unselfish and unaffected. It has been
pointed out that one of the results of the extraordinary tyranny of
authority is that words are absolutely distorted from their proper
and simple meaning, and are used to express the obverse of their
right signification. What is true about Art is true about Life. A
man is called affected, nowadays, if he dresses as he likes to
dress. But in doing that he is acting in a perfectly natural
manner. Affectation, in such matters, consists in dressing
according to the views of one's neighbour, whose views, as they are
the views of the majority, will probably be extremely stupid. Or a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: Art is the science of beauty, and Mathematics the science of truth:
there is no national school of either. Indeed, a national school
is a provincial school, merely. Nor is there any such thing as a
school of art even. There are merely artists, that is all.
And as regards histories of art, they are quite valueless to you
unless you are seeking the ostentatious oblivion of an art
professorship. It is of no use to you to know the date of Perugino
or the birthplace of Salvator Rosa: all that you should learn
about art is to know a good picture when you see it, and a bad
picture when you see it. As regards the date of the artist, all
good work looks perfectly modern: a piece of Greek sculpture, a
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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 The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: salt is to the ocean; it keeps it sweet, and renders it endurable.
Say rather it is like the natural unguent of the sea-fowl's
plumage, which enables him to shed the rain that falls on him and
the wave in which he dips. When one has had ALL his conceit taken
out of him, when he has lost ALL his illusions, his feathers will
soon soak through, and he will fly no more.
"So you admire conceited people, do you?" said the young lady who
has come to the city to be finished off for - the duties of life.
I am afraid you do not study logic at your school, my dear. It
does not follow that I wish to be pickled in brine because I like a
salt-water plunge at Nahant. I say that conceit is just as natural
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
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 An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: not known that he lived in so wild a region. There was
something uncanny in the revelation.
By nightfall he was fatigued, footsore, famished. The
thought of his wife and children urged him on. At last he
found a road which led him in what he knew to be the right
direction. It was as wide and straight as a city street, yet
it seemed untraveled. No fields bordered it, no dwelling
anywhere. Not so much as the barking of a dog suggested
human habitation. The black bodies of the trees formed a
straight wall on both sides, terminating on the horizon in a
point, like a diagram in a lesson in perspective. Overhead,
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
