| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: wished. So he went out round Oxford and found two villages, Upper
and Lower Hinksey, and between them there lay a great swamp, so
that the villagers could not pass from one to the other without
many miles of a round. And when we came back in winter he asked us
to help him to make a road across this morass for these village
people to use. So out we went, day after day, and learned how to
lay levels and to break stones, and to wheel barrows along a plank
- a very difficult thing to do. And Ruskin worked with us in the
mist and rain and mud of an Oxford winter, and our friends and our
enemies came out and mocked us from the bank. We did not mind it
much then, and we did not mind it afterwards at all, but worked
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: brain: but it is in the brain that everything takes place. We
know now that we do not see with the eyes or hear with the ears.
They are really channels for the transmission, adequate or
inadequate, of sense impressions. It is in the brain that the
poppy is red, that the apple is odorous, that the skylark sings.
Of late I have been studying with diligence the four prose poems
about Christ. At Christmas I managed to get hold of a Greek
Testament, and every morning, after I had cleaned my cell and
polished my tins, I read a little of the Gospels, a dozen verses
taken by chance anywhere. It is a delightful way of opening the
day. Every one, even in a turbulent, ill-disciplined life, should
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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 Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: passages to a parlour with an open door, through which the sun
shone gaily on the floor. Cheered by the morning air and this
sudden change to pleasantness and life, I stepped lightly out.
The two ladies were walking up and down a wide path which
bisected the garden. The weeds grew rankly in the gravel
underfoot, the rose bushes which bordered the walk thrust their
branches here and there in untrained freedom, a dark yew hedge
which formed the background bristled with rough shoots and sadly
needed trimming. But I did not see any of these things. The
grace, the noble air, the distinction of the two women who paced
slowly to meet me--and who shared all these qualities, greatly as
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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 Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: proceeded Clementi's roulades.
"Mary, can't you stop just a minute?" he said, in a voice that
showed that this music was the bane of his life. "One can't hear
a word."
The piano was silent, but one could hear the sound of reluctant
steps, and some one looked in at the door.
The inspector seemed to feel eased by the interval of silence,
lit a thick cigarette of weak tobacco, and offered one to
Nekhludoff.
Nekhludoff refused.
"What I want is to see Maslova."
Resurrection |
