| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson: O the clean gravel!
O the smooth stream!
Sailing blossoms, silver fishes,
Pave pools as clear as air--
How a child wishes
To live down there!
We can see our colored faces
Floating on the shaken pool
Down in cool places,
Dim and very cool;
Till a wind or water wrinkle,
A Child's Garden of Verses |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: costly and fragile to conceal, would roll through life clumsily
and rotundly like an old, green, heavily-hooped wine-cask: the
refinement of his shame requiring it to be so. A man who has
depths in his shame meets his destiny and his delicate decisions
upon paths which few ever reach, and with regard to the existence
of which his nearest and most intimate friends may be ignorant;
his mortal danger conceals itself from their eyes, and equally so
his regained security. Such a hidden nature, which instinctively
employs speech for silence and concealment, and is inexhaustible
in evasion of communication, DESIRES and insists that a mask of
himself shall occupy his place in the hearts and heads of his
Beyond Good and Evil |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: a buyer. The firm of Maxime and Chocardelle was losing two thousand
francs, it is true, but what was the loss compared with four glorious
thousand-franc notes in hand? 'Four thousand francs of live coin!--
there are moments in one's life when one would sign bills for eight
thousand to get them,' as the Count said to me.
"Two days later the Count must see the furniture himself, and took the
four thousand francs upon him. The sale had been arranged; thanks to
little Croizeau's diligence, he pushed matters on; he had 'come round'
the widow, as he expressed it. It was Maxime's intention to have all
the furniture removed at once to a lodging in a new house in the Rue
Tronchet, taken in the name of Mme. Ida Bonamy; he did not trouble
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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 The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: experiment should not be tried in England. If our enthusiasm for
Handel can support Handel Festivals, laughably dull, stupid and
anti-Handelian as these choral monstrosities are, as well as
annual provincial festivals on the same model, there is no
likelihood of a Wagner Festival failing. Suppose, for instance, a
Wagner theatre were built at Hampton Court or on Richmond Hill,
not to say Margate pier, so that we could have a delightful
summer evening holiday, Bayreuth fashion, passing the hours
between the acts in the park or ontheriver before sunset, is it
seriously contended that there would be any lack of visitors? If
a little of the money that is wasted on grand stands, Eiffel
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