| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: know how much I am in your debt.'
'It is such a small matter, Lord Arthur, that I do not care to make
any charge. The dynamite comes to seven and sixpence, the clock
will be three pounds ten, and the carriage about five shillings. I
am only too pleased to oblige any friend of Count Rouvaloff's.'
'But your trouble, Herr Winckelkopf?'
'Oh, that is nothing! It is a pleasure to me. I do not work for
money; I live entirely for my art.'
Lord Arthur laid down 4 pounds, 2s. 6d. on the table, thanked the
little German for his kindness, and, having succeeded in declining
an invitation to meet some Anarchists at a meat-tea on the
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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 Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville: disciples, and buried at Samaria. And there let Julianus Apostata
dig him up and let burn his bones (for he was at that time emperor)
and let winnow the ashes in the wind. But the finger that shewed
our Lord, saying, ECCE AGNUS DEI; that is to say, 'Lo! the Lamb of
God,' that would never burn, but is all whole; - that finger let
Saint Thecla, the holy virgin, be born into the hill of Sebast; and
there make men great feast.
In that place was wont to be a fair church; and many other there
were; but they be all beaten down. There was wont to be the head
of Saint John Baptist, enclosed in the wall. But the Emperor
Theodosius let draw it out, and found it wrapped in a little cloth,
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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 Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: have to do is to make a clear-voiced little instrument of yourself,
which other people can entirely depend upon for the note wanted.
So, in drawing, as soon as you can set down the right shape of
anything, and thereby explain its character to another person, or
make the look of it clear and interesting to a child, you will begin
to enjoy the art vividly for its own sake, and all your habits of
mind and powers of memory will gain precision: but if you only try
to make showy drawings for praise, or pretty ones for amusement,
your drawing will have little of real interest for you, and no
educational power whatever.
Then, besides this more delicate work, resolve to do every day some
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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 Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: These mountains, as they are uncultivated, are in some parts shaded
with large forests, and in others dry and bare. As they are
exceedingly high, all the seasons may be here found together; when
the storms of winter beat on one side, on the other is often a
serene sky and a bright sunshine. The Nile runs here so near the
shore that it might without much difficulty be turned through this
opening of the mountains into the Red Sea, a design which many of
the Emperors have thought of putting in execution, and thereby
making a communication between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean,
but have been discouraged either by the greatness of the expense or
the fear of laying great part of Egypt under water, for some of that
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