| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: set in the walls of nearly every room and down
the sides of many of the corridors. To the ape-man all
this wealth appeared to mean nothing.
On the two went, chance leading them toward the broad
avenue which lay between the stately piles of the
half-ruined edifices and the inner wall of the city.
Great apes jabbered at them and menaced them; but Tarzan
answered them after their own kind, giving back taunt
for taunt, insult for insult, challenge for challenge.
Werper saw a hairy bull swing down from a broken column
and advance, stiff-legged and bristling, toward the
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Cromwell by William Shakespeare: He might arrest him here before I came:
[Enter Cromwell.]
And in good time, see where he is. God save you sir.
CROMWELL.
And you: pray pardon me, I know you not.
BAGOT.
It may be so, sir, but my name is Bagot,
The man that sent to you the bills of debt.
CROMWELL.
O, the man that pursues Banister.
Here are the bills of debt you sent to me:
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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 Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche: Zarathustra, however, approached them with friendly mein and spake these
words:
Cease not your dancing, ye lovely maidens! No game-spoiler hath come to
you with evil eye, no enemy of maidens.
God's advocate am I with the devil: he, however, is the spirit of gravity.
How could I, ye light-footed ones, be hostile to divine dances? Or to
maidens' feet with fine ankles?
To be sure, I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not
afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses.
And even the little God may he find, who is dearest to maidens: beside the
well lieth he quietly, with closed eyes.
Thus Spake Zarathustra |
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 Intentions by Oscar Wilde: with your article.
VIVIAN (READING). 'Art begins with abstract decoration, with
purely imaginative and pleasurable work dealing with what is unreal
and non-existent. This is the first stage. Then Life becomes
fascinated with this new wonder, and asks to be admitted into the
charmed circle. Art takes life as part of her rough material,
recreates it, and refashions it in fresh forms, is absolutely
indifferent to fact, invents, imagines, dreams, and keeps between
herself and reality the impenetrable barrier of beautiful style, of
decorative or ideal treatment. The third stage is when Life gets
the upper hand, and drives Art out into the wilderness. That is
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