| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton: Oppresses else with surfeit, and soon turns
Wisdom to folly, as nourishment to wind.
Know then, that, after Lucifer from Heaven
(So call him, brighter once amidst the host
Of Angels, than that star the stars among,)
Fell with his flaming legions through the deep
Into his place, and the great Son returned
Victorious with his Saints, the Omnipotent
Eternal Father from his throne beheld
Their multitude, and to his Son thus spake.
At least our envious Foe hath failed, who thought
Paradise Lost |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes: leaped up as quickly as possible and drew their swords, which
were engraved with chiselled lettering. Holding their shields
before the face, they strive to wound each other with their
swords of steel. Lancelot stands in no fear of him, for he knew
half as much again about fencing as did his antagonist, having
learned it in his youth. Both dealt such blows on the shield
slung from their necks, and upon their helmets barred with gold,
that they crushed and damaged them. But Lancelot presses him
hard and gives him a mighty blow upon his right arm which, though
encased in mail, was unprotected by the shield, severing it with
one clean stroke. And when he felt the loss of his right arm, he
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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 Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: giving us both? Simply that Mr Harris has assumed that he was dealing
with a man, whilst the others have assumed that they were writing
about a god, and have therefore rejected every consideration of fact,
tradition, or interpretation, that pointed to any human imperfection
in their hero. They thus leave themselves with so little material
that they are forced to begin by saying that we know very little about
Shakespear. As a matter of fact, with the plays and sonnets in our
hands, we know much more about Shakespear than we know about Dickens
or Thackeray: the only difficulty is that we deliberately suppress it
because it proves that Shakespear was not only very unlike the
conception of a god current in Clapham, but was not, according to 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 A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov: last cloud of an expiring storm."
However, it is time to be stirring. I will go to
the Elizaveta spring -- I am told that the whole
society of the watering-place assembles there in
the morning.
. . . . .
Descending into the middle of the town, I
walked along the boulevard, on which I met a few
melancholy groups slowly ascending the moun-
tain. These, for the most part, were the families
of landed-gentry from the steppes -- as could be
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