| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: bethought myself of the tall earthenware pitcher in the captains'
room of the Jacobus "store."
With no more than a nod to the men I found assembled there, I
poured down a deep, cool draught on my indignation, then another,
and then, becoming dejected, I sat plunged in cheerless
reflections. The others read, talked, smoked, bandied over my head
some unsubtle chaff. But my abstraction was respected. And it was
without a word to any one that I rose and went out, only to be
quite unexpectedly accosted in the bustle of the store by Jacobus
the outcast.
"Glad to see you, Captain. What? Going away? You haven't been
'Twixt Land & Sea |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: "I like your saint," said the old man to Porbus, "and I will give you
ten golden crowns over and above the queen's offer; but as to entering
into competition with her--the devil!"
"You do like her, then?"
"As for that," said the old man, "yes, and no. The good woman is well
set-up, but--she is not living. You young men think you have done all
when you have drawn the form correctly, and put everything in place
according to the laws of anatomy. You color the features with flesh-
tones, mixed beforehand on your palette,--taking very good care to
shade one side of the face darker than the other; and because you draw
now and then from a nude woman standing on a table, you think you can
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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 Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: things which belong to them, or take credit to ourselves for
things to which we are not fairly entitled. But all the time we
are acting so it is perfectly obvious that we are weaving veils
between ourselves and others. You cannot have dealings with
another person in a purely truthful way, and be continually
trying to cheat that person out of money, or out of his good
name and reputation. If you are doing that, however much
in the background you may be doing it, you are not looking
the person fairly in the face--there is a cloud between you all
the time. So long as your soul is not purified from all these
really absurd and ridiculous little desires and superiorities and
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
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 Menexenus by Plato: hatred of the foreigner has passed unadulterated into the life-blood of the
city. And so, notwithstanding our noble sentiments, we were again
isolated, because we were unwilling to be guilty of the base and unholy act
of giving up Hellenes to barbarians. And we were in the same case as when
we were subdued before; but, by the favour of Heaven, we managed better,
for we ended the war without the loss of our ships or walls or colonies;
the enemy was only too glad to be quit of us. Yet in this war we lost many
brave men, such as were those who fell owing to the ruggedness of the
ground at the battle of Corinth, or by treason at Lechaeum. Brave men,
too, were those who delivered the Persian king, and drove the
Lacedaemonians from the sea. I remind you of them, and you must celebrate
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