| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: toward some future creative school. As the early Italian artists,
by careful imitation, absorbed into their minds the beauty and
meaning of old Greek and Roman art; so must the artists of our days
by the art of the Middle Age and the Renaissance. They must learn
to copy, before they can learn to surpass; and, meanwhile, they must
learn--indeed they have learnt--that decay is ugliness, and the
imitation of decay, a making money out of the public shame.
The picturesque sprang up, as far as I can discover, suddenly,
during the time of exhaustion and recklessness which followed the
great struggles of the sixteenth century. Salvator Rosa and Callot,
two of the earliest professors of picturesque art, have never been
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Bassett went to a chair and sat down. He felt sick, and his knees
were trembling. Something had happened, a search for Clark room
by room perhaps, and the discovery had been made.
He was totally unable to think or to plan. With Dick well they
could perhaps have made a run for it. The fire-escape stood ready.
But as things were - The murmuring among the crowd at the foot of
the stairs ceased, and he looked up. Wilkins was on the staircase,
searching the lobby with his eyes. When he saw Bassett he came
quickly down and confronted him, his face angry and suspicious.
"You're mixed up in this somehow," he said sharply. "You might as
well come over with the story. We'll get him. He can't get out
The Breaking Point |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: What could I tell him he did not know already? . . . Finally
I went on deck.
II
The skipper of the Sephora had a thin red whisker all round his face,
and the sort of complexion that goes with hair of that color;
also the particular, rather smeary shade of blue in the eyes.
He was not exactly a showy figure; his shoulders were high,
his stature but middling--one leg slightly more bandy
than the other. He shook hands, looking vaguely around.
A spiritless tenacity was his main characteristic, I judged.
I behaved with a politeness which seemed to disconcert him.
The Secret Sharer |
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 The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: "Who put him up to it?" asked Couture.
"The fact was," continued Bixiou, "that Nucingen had twice had the
luck to present the public (quite unintentionally) with a pie that
turned out to be worth more than the money he received for it. That
unlucky good luck gave him qualms of conscience. A course of such luck
is fatal to a man in the long run. This time he meant to make no
mistake of this sort; he waited ten years for an opportunity of
issuing negotiable securities which should seem on the face of it to
be worth something, while as a matter of fact----"
"But if you look at banking in that light," broke in Couture, "no sort
of business would be possible. More than one bona fide banker, backed
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