| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: intellectual tendencies of his own age; the adversary of the almost equally
ideal Socrates. He seems to be always growing in the fancy of Plato, now
boastful, now eristic, now clothing himself in rags of philosophy, now more
akin to the rhetorician or lawyer, now haranguing, now questioning, until
the final appearance in the Politicus of his departing shadow in the
disguise of a statesman. We are not to suppose that Plato intended by such
a description to depict Protagoras or Gorgias, or even Thrasymachus, who
all turn out to be 'very good sort of people when we know them,' and all of
them part on good terms with Socrates. But he is speaking of a being as
imaginary as the wise man of the Stoics, and whose character varies in
different dialogues. Like mythology, Greek philosophy has a tendency to
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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 Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad: sense of oppression.
"Don't think for a moment that I have been scared off," she said.
"It is they who were frightened. I suppose you heard a lot of
Headquarters gossip?"
"Oh, yes," Mills said meaningly. "The fair and the dark are
succeeding each other like leaves blown in the wind dancing in and
out. I suppose you have noticed that leaves blown in the wind have
a look of happiness."
"Yes," she said, "that sort of leaf is dead. Then why shouldn't it
look happy? And so I suppose there is no uneasiness, no occasion
for fears amongst the 'responsibles.'"
The Arrow of Gold |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft: century Breton Architecture which flaunts its stuccoed front amidst
the lovely olonial houses on the ancient hill, and under the very
shadow of the finest Georgian steeple in America, I found him
at work in his rooms, and at once conceded from the specimens
scattered about that his genius is indeed profound and authentic.
He will, I believe, some time be heard from as one of the great
decadents; for he has crystallised in clay and will one day mirror
in marble those nightmares and phantasies which Arthur Machen
evokes in prose, and Clark Ashton Smith makes visible in verse
and in painting.
Dark, frail, and somewhat unkempt in aspect,
Call of Cthulhu |
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 Poems by Oscar Wilde: Aimlessly sought some slumberous anodyne
For wasted lives, for lingering wretchedness,
Till we beheld thy re-arisen shrine,
And the white glory of thy loveliness.
Poem: The Burden Of Itys
This English Thames is holier far than Rome,
Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea
Breaking across the woodland, with the foam
Of meadow-sweet and white anemone
To fleck their blue waves, - God is likelier there
Than hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear!
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