| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes: and legs, by means of which they increase devotion and add to their
own Christian reputation. Kings carry the bodies or relics of saints
on their shoulders, and kiss bits of their bones, and enrich and adorn
their oratories and favourite altars with them."
"What wouldst thou have me infer from all thou hast said, Sancho?"
asked Don Quixote.
"My meaning is," said Sancho, "let us set about becoming saints, and
we shall obtain more quickly the fair fame we are striving after;
for you know, senor, yesterday or the day before yesterday (for it
is so lately one may say so) they canonised and beatified two little
barefoot friars, and it is now reckoned the greatest good luck to kiss
Don Quixote |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: any woman could have stood it for long, or have thought the "sugred"
compliment worth the cruel wounds, the cleaving of the heart in twain,
that seemed to Shakespear as natural and amusing a reaction as the
burlesquing of his heroics by Pistol, his sermons by Falstaff, and his
poems by Cloten and Touchstone.
Jupiter and Semele
This does not mean that Shakespear was cruel: evidently he was not;
but it was not cruelty that made Jupiter reduce Semele to ashes: it
was the fact that he could not help being a god nor she help being a
mortal. The one thing Shakespear's passion for the Dark Lady was not,
was what Mr Harris in one passage calls it: idolatrous. If it had
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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 Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: he seemed to read in the recesses of their souls their most
secret thoughts.
He was dead, now, at the age of eighty-two, honored by the homage
and followed by the regrets of a whole people. Soldiers in red
breeches had escorted him to the tomb, and men in white cravats
had shed on his grave tears that seemed to be real.
But listen to the strange paper found by the dismayed notary in
the desk where the judge had kept filed the records of great
criminals! It was entitled:
WHY?
June 20, 1851. I have just left court. I have condemned Blondel
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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 Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: Shakespeare and the rest have to walk behind a common tailor from
Tennessee, by the name of Billings; and behind a horse-doctor named
Sakka, from Afghanistan. Jeremiah, and Billings and Buddha walk
together, side by side, right behind a crowd from planets not in
our astronomy; next come a dozen or two from Jupiter and other
worlds; next come Daniel, and Sakka and Confucius; next a lot from
systems outside of ours; next come Ezekiel, and Mahomet, Zoroaster,
and a knife-grinder from ancient Egypt; then there is a long
string, and after them, away down toward the bottom, come
Shakespeare and Homer, and a shoemaker named Marais, from the back
settlements of France."
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