| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: for dinner, where he gets his clothes, what wines he likes, and in
what state of health he is, just as if he were writing weekly notes
for some popular newspaper of our own time. This being the least
valuable side of his work, is the one that has had the most obvious
influence. A publicist, nowadays, is a man who bores the community
with the details of the illegalities of his private life.
Like most artificial people, he had a great love of nature. 'I
hold three things in high estimation,' he says somewhere: 'to sit
lazily on an eminence that commands a rich prospect; to be shadowed
by thick trees while the sun shines around me; and to enjoy
solitude with the consciousness of neighbourhood. The country
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: returned the Captain gently. "But let us proceed."
In the powder magazine they found an old salt smoking his pipe.
"Good God," cried the Captain, "what are you about?"
"Well, sir," said the old salt, apologetically, "they told me as
she were going down."
"And suppose she were?" said the Captain. "To the philosophic eye,
there would be nothing new in our position. Life, my old shipmate,
life, at any moment and in any view, is as dangerous as a sinking
ship; and yet it is man's handsome fashion to carry umbrellas, to
wear indiarubber over-shoes, to begin vast works, and to conduct
himself in every way as if he might hope to be eternal. And for my
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from In Darkest England and The Way Out by General William Booth: We must be willing to receive the outpourings of our struggling fellow
men, to listen to the long-buried secret that has troubled the human
heart, and to welcome instead of repelling those who would obey the
Apostolic precept: "To confess their sins one to another." Let not
that word confession scandalise any. Confession of the most open sort;
confession on the public platform before the presence of all the man's
former associates in sin has long been one of the most potent weapons
by which the Salvation Army has won its victories. That confession we
have long imposed on all our converts, and it is the only confession
which seems to us to be a condition of Salvation. But this suggestion
is of a different kind. It is not imposed as a means of grace.
In Darkest England and The Way Out |
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 Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: In the small orb of one particular tear!
But with the inundation of the eyes
What rocky heart to water will not wear?
What breast so cold that is not warmed here?
O cleft effect! cold modesty, hot wrath,
Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath.
'For lo! his passion, but an art of craft,
Even there resolv'd my reason into tears;
There my white stole of chastity I daff'd,
Shook off my sober guards, and civil fears;
Appear to him, as he to me appears,
|
