| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: spangles on her slippers."
"Mr. Copley," said Drowne, quietly, "I know nothing of marble
statuary, and nothing of the sculptor's rules of art; but of this
wooden image, this work of my hands, this creature of my
heart,"--and here his voice faltered and choked in a very
singular manner,--"of this--of her --I may say that I know
something. A well-spring of inward wisdom gushed within me as I
wrought upon the oak with my whole strength, and soul, and faith.
Let others do what they may with marble, and adopt what rules
they choose. If I can produce my desired effect by painted wood,
those rules are not for me, and I have a right to disregard
Mosses From An Old Manse |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: "I guess a good many would be the better for having one close," I
said.
Well, I left her to get dressed and went to the kitchens. Tillie
was there getting the beef tea ready for the day, but none of the
rest was around. They knew the housekeeper was gone, but I guess
they'd forgotten that I was still on hand. I put a kettle
against the electric bell that rings in the chef's room so it
would keep on ringing and went on into the diet kitchen.
"Tillie," I said, "can you trust me?"
She looked up from her beef.
"Whether I can or not, I always have," she answered.
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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 Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: product is physical and moral disease.
Thus, it has come to pass that vast numbers of us are, by modern social
conditions, prohibited from child-bearing at all; and that even those among
us who are child-bearers are required, in proportion as the class of race
to which we belong stands high in the scale of civilisation, to produce in
most cases a limited number of offspring; so that even for these of us,
child-bearing and suckling, instead of filling the entire circle of female
life from the first appearance of puberty to the end of middle age, becomes
an episodal occupation, employing from three or four to ten or twenty of
the threescore-and-ten-years which are allotted to human life. In such
societies the statement (so profoundly true when made with regard to most
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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 Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw: own work. Mrs Warren's Profession is the one play of mine which
I could submit to a censorship without doubt of the result; only,
it must not be the censorship of the minor theatre critic, nor of
an innocent court official like the Lord Chamberlain's Examiner,
much less of people who consciously profit by Mrs Warren's
profession, or who personally make use of it, or who hold the
widely whispered view that it is an indispensable safety-valve
for the protection of domestic virtue, or, above all, who are
smitten with a sentimental affection for our fallen sister, and
would "take her up tenderly, lift her with care, fashioned so
slenderly, young, and SO fair." Nor am I prepared to accept the
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