| 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: WHAT, you will say to me, the Greeks? were not they an artistic
people?
Well, the Greeks certainly not, but, perhaps, you mean the
Athenians, the citizens of one out of a thousand cities.
Do you think that they were an artistic people? Take them even at
the time of their highest artistic development, the latter part of
the fifth century before Christ, when they had the greatest poets
and the greatest artists of the antique world, when the Parthenon
rose in loveliness at the bidding of a Phidias, and the philosopher
spake of wisdom in the shadow of the painted portico, and tragedy
swept in the perfection of pageant and pathos across the marble of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: heroes. I say that Homer intended Achilles to be the bravest of the men
who went to Troy, Nestor the wisest, and Odysseus the wiliest.
SOCRATES: O rare Hippias, will you be so good as not to laugh, if I find a
difficulty in following you, and repeat my questions several times over?
Please to answer me kindly and gently.
HIPPIAS: I should be greatly ashamed of myself, Socrates, if I, who teach
others and take money of them, could not, when I was asked by you, answer
in a civil and agreeable manner.
SOCRATES: Thank you: the fact is, that I seemed to understand what you
meant when you said that the poet intended Achilles to be the bravest of
men, and also that he intended Nestor to be the wisest; but when you said
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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 Dracula by Bram Stoker: through the gloom, with the howling of the wolves around us,
as though they were following in a moving circle.
At last there came a time when the driver went further afield than
he had yet gone, and during his absence, the horses began to tremble
worse than ever and to snort and scream with fright. I could not see
any cause for it, for the howling of the wolves had ceased altogether.
But just then the moon, sailing through the black clouds, appeared behind
the jagged crest of a beetling, pine-clad rock, and by its light I saw
around us a ring of wolves, with white teeth and lolling red tongues,
with long, sinewy limbs and shaggy hair. They were a hundred times more
terrible in the grim silence which held them than even when they howled.
Dracula |
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 Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: creature of the forest, eating delicious fruits and looking
with eyes of love into answering eyes.
But love is a strange master, and human nature is still
stranger, so she asked her question.
"Where is the forest man who went to rescue you? Why
did he not return?"
"I do not understand," said Clayton. "Whom do you mean?"
"He who has saved each of us--who saved me from the gorilla."
"Oh," cried Clayton, in surprise. "It was he who rescued you?
You have not told me anything of your adventure, you know."
"But the wood man," she urged. "Have you not seen him?
Tarzan of the Apes |
