| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: Iul. Yet let me weepe, for such a feeling losse
Lad. So shall you feele the losse, but not the Friend
Which you weepe for
Iul. Feeling so the losse,
I cannot chuse but euer weepe the Friend
La. Well Girle, thou weep'st not so much for his death,
As that the Villaine liues which slaughter'd him
Iul. What Villaine, Madam?
Lad. That same Villaine Romeo
Iul. Villaine and he, be many miles assunder:
God pardon, I doe with all my heart:
Romeo and Juliet |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: somewhat like a bully seeking to pick a quarrel?[14]
[13] Like Biron, "L. L. L." v. 2. 854. Or, "you are a clever
caricaturist." See Plat. "Symp." 215 A; Hug, "Enleitung," xiv.;
Aristoph. "Birds," 804 (Frere, p. 173); "Wasps," 1309.
[14] Aristoph. "Frogs," 857, "For it ill beseems illustrious bards to
scold like market-women." (Frere, p. 269); "Knights," 1410, "to
bully"; "Eccles." 142:
{kai loidorountai g' osper empepokotes,
kai ton paroinount' ekpherous' oi toxotai.}
Yes (replied the jester), he has a striking likeness to that person
and a heap of others. He bristles with metaphors.
The Symposium |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: The King of Ceilan rode through his city with a large ruby in his hand,
as the ceremony of his coronation. The gates of the palace of John
the Priest were "made of sardius, with the horn of the horned
snake inwrought, so that no man might bring poison within."
Over the gable were "two golden apples, in which were two carbuncles,"
so that the gold might shine by day and the carbuncles by night.
In Lodge's strange romance A Margarite of America, it was stated
that in the chamber of the queen one could behold "all the chaste
ladies of the world, inchased out of silver, looking through fair
mirrours of chrysolites, carbuncles, sapphires, and greene emeraults."
Marco Polo had seen the inhabitants of Zipangu place rose-coloured
The Picture of Dorian Gray |
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 Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: painting; no blank wall, as in architecture; but every word,
phrase, sentence, and paragraph must move in a logical
progression, and convey a definite conventional import.
Now the first merit which attracts in the pages of a good
writer, or the talk of a brilliant conversationalist, is the
apt choice and contrast of the words employed. It is,
indeed, a strange art to take these blocks, rudely conceived
for the purpose of the market or the bar, and by tact of
application touch them to the finest meanings and
distinctions, restore to them their primal energy, wittily
shift them to another issue, or make of them a drum to rouse
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