| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: "why don't you stay here altogether, instead of going home and rioting
away all you have earned?"
"I would stay," he answered," but I have my wife there in Russia."
"Your wife!" I exclaimed, stupidly surprised that the poor deformed
creature should have found a mate--as though there were not a superfluity
of mates in the world--"I didn't know you were married?"
"Yes, and I have two little children, and I <111>
don't know what they would do if I were not to come home.
But it is a very expensive journey to Russia, and costs me
every time seven marks."
"Seven marks!"
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: Yon creamy lily for their pavilion
Are monsignores, and where the rushes shake
A lazy pike lies basking in the sun,
His eyes half shut, - he is some mitred old
Bishop in PARTIBUS! look at those gaudy scales all green and gold.
The wind the restless prisoner of the trees
Does well for Palaestrina, one would say
The mighty master's hands were on the keys
Of the Maria organ, which they play
When early on some sapphire Easter morn
In a high litter red as blood or sin the Pope is borne
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: very existence of the arts must be held to depend on the possibility of
measuring more or less, not only with one another, but also with a view to
the attainment of the mean, seems to afford a grand support and
satisfactory proof of the doctrine which we are maintaining; for if there
are arts, there is a standard of measure, and if there is a standard of
measure, there are arts; but if either is wanting, there is neither.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True; and what is the next step?
STRANGER: The next step clearly is to divide the art of measurement into
two parts, as we have said already, and to place in the one part all the
arts which measure number, length, depth, breadth, swiftness with their
opposites; and to have another part in which they are measured with the
Statesman |
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 My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: Her understanding did not reach above the ordinary pitch, if,
indeed, she could be said to have attained it. Her beauty, while
it lasted, consisted, in a great measure, of delicacy of
complexion and regularity of features, without any peculiar force
of expression. Even these charms faded under the sufferings
attendant on an ill-assorted match. She was passionately
attached to her husband, by whom she was treated with a callous
yet polite indifference, which, to one whose heart was as tender
as her judgment was weak, was more painful perhaps than absolute
ill-usage. Sir Philip was a voluptuary--that is, a completely
selfish egotist--whose disposition and character resembled the
|
